The nation's largest nongovernmental regulator of securities is signaling it wants executing brokers to know their customers better, even when the clients come from larger firms.
Plans by the U.S. securities market regulator to more strictly enforce regulations will result in a jump in anti-money laundering penalties both by the agency and its private sector partner.
Penny stock fraud and soon-to-be introduced customer due diligence regulations should be foremost on the minds of compliance officers at small securities firms, believes Kenneth Cherrier, senior vice president and chief supervisory officer at Overland, KS-based Waddell & Reed, Inc.
The number of fines levied by the U.S. nongovernmental regulator of securities and brokerage firms more than doubled in the first five months of 2012 compared to the same period in 2011.
The Financial Industry Regulatory Agency (Finra), which is responsible for ensuring that securities firms have effective anti-money laundering programs in place, had a tough time doing that in 2011 after being denied access to suspicious activity reports (SARs) filed by the firms it oversees.
In violation of federal law, the confidentiality of suspicious activity reports is being breached regularly by some securities firms, a securities markets regulator said Friday.
The chief self-regulatory organization examining broker-dealers for anti-money laundering compliance is again allowed to have direct access to suspicious activity reports, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission confirmed Thursday.
The largest non-governmental regulator of U.S. securities firms said Thursday that it had fined three companies over $1.25 million for failing to implement "reasonable" anti-money laundering compliance programs.
Penalties issued by the Financial Industry Regulatory Agency for anti-money laundering violations are on course to outnumber similar fines levied by the self-regulatory organization in 2008, according to agency data.