FINRA Gateway Release Notes (2023)

Automated the Email Reminder Process for FCS Annual Review

• First email reminder will be sent to Executive Representative (ER), Designated Assistant for ER and Chief Compliance Officer on the first business day of the calendar year.
• Second email reminder will be sent on the 10^th business day of each calendar year to people who haven’t submitted the Annual Review.
• Final email reminder will be sent on the 15^th business day of each calendar year to people who haven’t submitted the Annual Review.

Please note: all emails will be sent from [email protected].

Changes supporting SEC’s Form PF Current Reporting for Hedge Funds (Section 5) and Private Equity Funds (Section 6)

• Firm users with the required entitlements will be able to:
  • Initiate filings for form PF - Section 5 and Section 6 from ‘Actions’ on the firm profile in FINRA Gateway
  • Create drafts, submit filings, and amend submitted filings
  • View drafts and submitted filings from ‘Requests and Filings’
  • View the filings submitted in Event History on firm profile
  • View the history of a filing - initial and amendments for a filing, in Event History on firm profile
  • Link to FINRA gateway Section 5 and Section 6 forms from PFRD Section 1-4 forms
  • Print and download the filing details in PDF format
  • Submit filings in XML or JSON format using FileX

• Enhancing the user experience by displaying the ADV NR drafts hyperlink with count of drafts under filings section to navigate to ADV NR drafts from firm profile.
• Improvements to the error message handling for firm Broker Dealer profile. Error messages would be displayed for the specific fields that may have an error. The rest of the fields will display the value.
• Fix to address the display issue in the disclosures section where the “Submitted By” column shows as ‘unknown’ when there is no CRD # associated. With this fix, the value will show as ‘—’ instead of ‘unknown’ for that disclosure.

General IAR CE Report Template Enhancements

• A new Residential Locations sub-table was made available in all IAR CE templates. Users can now add the entire sub-table or just specifics data fields from it to customize templates and/or to use as filter and/or group conditions.
• Registration Category Code and Registration Category Name fields have been added to the Registrations sub-table in all IAR CE templates. Users can now use these fields to customize templates and/or to use as filter and/or group conditions.

IAR CE Regulator Report template update

• The IAR CE Regulator Report template has been updated to include a default filter with the condition Registration Category Code = RA.

Sort by fields specific to the work item cards

• Users will now be able to sort the work item cards by custom fields specific to their work item cards along with the standard common fields. Previously users were able to sort by common fields only.

Filter by Date fields specific to the work item cards

• Users will now be able to filter the work item cards by custom date fields specific to their work item cards along with the standard common fields. Previously users were able to filter by common date fields only.

Show More feature in the filters will now display upto 25 values

• Users will now be able to see up to 25 values in the filters when they clicks on ‘Show More’. Earlier users were able to see only 15 values when they click on ‘Show More’

Search with partial keywords

• All users will now be able to search with partial keywords by including an asterisk * at the end of the keyword. A minimum of 3 characters is needed before the asterisk * to enable the partial search query. (Eg: Par* will search for Partial, Party, Parts, etc). Earlier users should enter the entire word to search for the work items.

Changes Supporting NASAA’s Exam Validity Extension Program for Investment Adviser Representatives

• Summary section: Display enrollment and CE completion status for the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA)'s Exam Validity Extension Program for Investment Adviser Representatives (IAR EVEP). 
• MQP/EVEP section: Display details about each enrolled, previously enrolled, and eligible state qualification exam under NASAA's EVEP. 

Changes Supporting NASAA’s Exam Validity Extension Program for Investment Adviser Representatives

• Industry professionals who are eligible for NASAA's IAR EVEP will receive notifications announcing eligibility, enrollment, due date reminders and participation status changes. 

Changes Supporting NASAA’s Exam Validity Extension Program for Investment Adviser Representatives

• Individuals who are eligible to enroll in NASAA’s IAR EVEP will have the ability to select and pay their participation fee for the state qualification exam.

Changes Supporting NASAA’s Exam Validity Extension Program for Investment Adviser Representatives

• Summary section: Display enrollment and CE completion status for NASAA’s IAR EVEP.
• MQP/EVEP section: Display details about each enrolled, previously enrolled, and eligible state qualification exam under NASAA’s EVEP.
• Exam History section: Display NASAA IAR EVEP exam credit information.

• Fixed: SSN not displayed for users when the user performs a pre-registration search. After the fix, the users will be able to view the SSN information even when performing a pre-registration search if the user has the required permissions.

• Fixed: Unable to do a pre-registration search or a search for an individual when the name consisted of special characters.

• The experience has been updated for individuals with only a single account saved. When logging in, the individual account will be pre-selected (only requiring the user to click login). Additionally, the pop-up dialog after clicking login, warning that you are changing accounts, has been removed.

Changes Supporting NASAA’s Exam Validity Extension Program for Broker-Dealer Agents

• Industry professionals who are are enrolling in both MQP and NASAA's AG EVEP will see clear guidance that two separate payments are required to be fully enrolled in both programs.

Changes Supporting Industry professionals

• Residential Address updates (for non-registered individuals): Better error messaging when entered information does not meet validation criteria.
• Email Addresses: Better error messaging when entered email addresses do not meet format criteria.

• Fixed: Pagination indicator was displaying incorrect page number when applying filters and search

Changes Supporting NASAA’s Exam Validity Extension Program for Broker-Dealer Agents

• Summary section: Display enrollment and CE completion status for the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA)’s Exam Validity Extension Program for Broker-Dealer Agents (AG EVEP).
• Maintaining Qualifications Program (MQP) Enrolled Qualifications section: Display details about each state qualification exam under NASAA’s AG EVEP.
• Exam History section: Display NASAA’s AG EVEP historical exam credit information.

Changes Supporting NASAA’s Exam Validity Extension Program for Broker-Dealer Agents

• NASAA’s AG EVEP credit dataset added to Exam reports.

Changes Supporting NASAA’s Exam Validity Extension Program for Broker-Dealer Agents

• MQP system notification updated. Industry professionals who are eligible for both the MQP and NASAA’s AG EVEP program will receive notifications that provide information for both programs in one communication.

Changes Supporting NASAA’s Exam Validity Extension Program for Broker-Dealer Agents

• MQP participants who are currently enrolled or choose to enroll in the MQP and are also eligible to enroll in NASAA’s AG EVEP will have the ability to select and pay their participation fee for each state qualification exam.

Changes Supporting NASAA’s Exam Validity Extension Program for Broker-Dealer Agents

• Summary section: Display enrollment and CE completion status for AG EVEP.
• MQP section: Display details about each enrolled, previously enrolled, and eligible state qualification exam under NASAA’s AG EVEP.
• Exam History section: Display NASAA AG EVEP exam credit information.

• Reduced the size and relocated the red circle that displays on the Gateway Notification Bell so that it is easier to click on the Bell to open the notification menu.

• Fixed: If an Individual profile had a high number of registrations some of the information may have been cut off or not visible.

Introduction of Fast Account Switching

• Firm accounts are now able to be remembered on a web browser basis. By saving more than 1 account, a user will be able to switch between the saved account without logging out and logging in (as long as the account being switched to is still active or does not require a password change).
• Users can switch by leveraging the “manage log ins” feature found in the user profile menu (circle with user initials on the top right of the page).
• Users will have to login with 1 of the remembered accounts using the same rules that exist prior to introduction of this functionality (example inactivity).
• The feature currently allows for up to 20 remembered accounts.

Display of Creation Date

• Display the date the request was created for Information Request work item cards

Display of accurate counts on the Active, Completed and Save View tabs

• Remove the 10k limit and display the “actual” total counts for the Active tab, Completed tab and Save view tabs

Enhancements to Search

• Increase the limit of the number of characters entered in the Search box from 30 to 100.
• Allow users to search by the following special characters - @&,.'

• Provide link to describe exam validity statuses and explanation specifically for expired S66
• Re-order the Action links by usage
• ‘Enroll in SIE’ will only be available conditionally
• Change displayed IAR CE Status values to be consistent with other Continuing Education Statuses.

Restrict access to requests ‘Withdrawn’ by FINRA

• Access to the Requests that are ‘Withdrawn’ by FINRA will be restricted from the links in the email notifications

Updates to eFOCUS (Financial/Operational) work items

• Filing Analysis is no longer available.
• Compare filings action and workflow have changed.

New filter for account management

• The capability to filter for disabled accounts was added.

• Pre-registration search results for individuals without an SSN (search includes only last name + DOB) will no longer display individuals that have a SSN.
• Numbers will be masked upon data input on all SSN fields.

IAR CE Waiver Information Display

• Updated profile displays for the individual to show if an individual currently has a wavier for the IAR CE requirement.

Chat Support added to FinPro & Redesigned Help Navigation

• Help options have been consolidated to a help navigation located on the top right of the page.
• A new chat with an AI-based digital assistant feature has been added to allow for self-service support.

User Information

Enhanced User Information Display

• Introduction of display of the username, firm name and firm organization ID to user profile menu (circle with user initials on the top right of the page).

New Report Templates

• IAR CE Firm Course Completion Template
• Annual Reg Element – Overall CE Status by Registered Individual
• Annual Reg Element – Overall CE Status is Satisfied

• Representatives registered with firms that are leveraging FINRA’s Firm Element Learning Management System can now access course via FinPro.

Maintain Qualifications Program Continuing Education History

• Introduced the ability to see full MQP Continuing Education History in the individual’s profile.

Year removed from Annual Reg Element CE Date

• Changed the date picker to only use Month and Day for the selection of firm due date for Reg Element in the optional firm settings.

FINRA Contacts Label Change

• Label for FINRA Role updated from Single Point of Accountability (SPOA) to Vice President/Senior Director, Risk Monitoring.

Updates to items displayed per page

• The default number of items displayed per page is increased from 10 to 25.

Remove the requests ‘Withdrawn’ by FINRA

• The requests sent to the firm and later ‘Withdrawn’ by FINRA are no longer visible in Requests and Filings in FINRA Gateway or Request Manager Portal.

Information Requests

Text Formatting

• Users are now able to apply various formatting to their comments in the Details section of the item response form and view the formatted comments in the activity section once submitted in FINRA Gateway and Request Manager Portal.

Search Improvements

• Users can search with specific phrases and get the exact match by adding the phrase within double quotes; inclusive of searches that contain special characters. (eg: “2022-01”).

Account Management Cards

• Users will now be able to see only the account management work items that are relevant to them - based on the requestor and authorized signatory.

FINRA Contacts System (FCS)

New section “FINRA Department Contacts”

• Under FINRA Staff Contacts, a new section “FINRA Department Contacts” was added in the Contacts section of FINRA Gateway.

Launch the new Continuing Education (CE) Notification Settings

• Retired the previous CE Notification Settings in Firm Settings.
• Settings preferences changed to send reminder emails for CE completion on January 15, April 15, July 15, October 15, December 1, December 15
• Firms also have an option to send a notification based on CE status changes such as: CE Required, CE Inactive, CE 2-Year Termed and CE Satisfied.
• The ability to add a firm due date is available as an enhancement per firm request.
• The ability to add multiple firm contacts as cc is available now.

Changes to support the Annual CE Program

• Updates made across FINRA Gateway, FinPro, and FINRA Gateway Reports to support FINRA Regulatory Notice 21-41 also known as the Annual CE Program.
• Changes impact display of continuing education in the individual profiles and reports available to the industry for tracking program completion.
• For detailed list of changes see CE Systems Changes Jan 23