TRACE Business Continuity Plan

TRACE currently operates on a high availability Tandem operation system, in a single datacenter. In the unlikely event of a system-wide failure, FINRA will use the following resources to alert members. FINRA will continuously update members on system status, recovery and retransmission procedures.

  • Information will be posted and updated on the FINRA Web site.
  • FINRA recommends that interested parties at each firm subscribe to receive FINRA email alerts. All postings to the BCP web page will also be sent via email. If you would like to subscribe to receive alerts please use the attached link and follow the instructions: https://tools.finra.org/email_subscriptions/?lists=trace.

TRACE users may experience the following technical system interruptions in the event of a system-wide failure.

  • CTCI connections will fail. If normal failover and recovery scenarios cannot reconnect to the application automatically, please refer to our TRACE System Status page or contact FINRA Market Operations at (866) 776-0800 or send an email.
  • TRACE Web users will receive a system unavailable message. Please refer to our TRACE System Status page; if no information relative to technology is posted please contact FINRA Market Operations for further information at (866) 776-0800 or send an email.
  • FICC subscribers will have their reports queued. FICC support staff will follow the guidelines for CTCI users on behalf of its firms. FICC will notify you of the problem and recovery procedure to follow. FICC users may also contact FINRA Market Operations for additional information or direction at (866) 776-0800 or send an email.


If TRACE is restored during the business day, firms are required to report all transactions by TRACE close of business. Firms that require additional time to complete their trade reporting obligation should contact Market Operations at (866) 776-0800 as soon as possible, but no later than one hour prior to the normal TRACE close of 6:30 p.m. EST.

If TRACE is not restored on the same business day, firms are required to retain all transmissions until such time that firms are notified by FINRA to resubmit their trade reports. Firms are required to submit their trades "as-of" in production using their normal trade reporting method.

FICC subscribers will need to confirm that their TRACE files are deleted and retain their trades for resubmission, when TRACE is operational.

These requirements may change and firms should continue to monitor www.finra.org for any further updates.