ATS Order Book Processing Sequence Numbers

On December 8, 2016, FINRA filed with the SEC a proposed rule change for immediate effectiveness relating to Rule 4554 reporting requirements for Alternative Trading Systems (“ATSs”).  Specifically, FINRA amended Rule 4554 to require ATSs to provide additional order sequencing information on reports submitted to the Order Audit Trail System (“OATS”).  

Rule 4554(b) originally required ATSs to report, among other items, the sequence number assigned to the order event by the ATS’s matching engine at the time of receipt of the order. FINRA amended this requirement to require ATSs to report a sequence number for all OATS order event types, including reports for the execution of an order or the routing of an order away from the ATS. Requiring ATSs to report a sequence number for all OATS order events, rather than just order receipt, will further enable FINRA to properly sequence order events within an ATS when the event times are the same. Please note that these changes apply only to firms operating an Alternative Trading System. 

Additional details related to this change may be found in the January 20, 2017 version of the OATS Reporting Technical Specifications. These changes are scheduled to be effective on March 27, 2017 in the OATS Test (“CT”) environment and on April 24, 2017 in the OATS Production (“PD”) environment.  

Please contact the OATS Helpdesk at (800) 321-6273 with any questions regarding this OATS Report.