Report From FINRA Board of Governors Meeting – March 2022

Board Approves Rulemaking Items and Use of 2021 Fine Monies; Meets With SEC Chair Gary Gensler

WASHINGTON—FINRA’s Board of Governors met on March 9-10 for the first time in 2022. The Board approved three rulemaking items and discussed a variety of topics, including technology initiatives and matters pertaining to regulatory operations.

The FINRA Board discussed FINRA’s multi-year effort to transform its registration and disclosure programs and received an update on the organization’s ongoing Digital Experience Transformation, an initiative designed to integrate and simplify brokerage firms’ digital interactions with FINRA, thus facilitating more efficient and effective compliance programs. The Board also received an update from FINRA's Member Supervision department, which recently published the 2022 Report on FINRA’s Examination and Risk Monitoring Program, a library of information and resources to help firms inform their compliance programs.

As is customary for the first meeting of the year, the FINRA Board approved the allocation of prior-year fine monies to various capital initiatives in accordance with FINRA’s Financial Guiding Principles. FINRA will release details about the allocations in an upcoming Report on the Use of 2021 Fine Monies.

The FINRA Board met with Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler. The Board often hosts SEC officials and various stakeholders during a portion of its meetings, and this was Chair Gensler’s first visit with the FINRA Board.

“We were honored to hear Chair Gensler speak about the regulatory priorities of the Commission, which provided us with an opportunity to think about how they intersect with FINRA’s regulatory priorities,” said FINRA CEO Robert W. Cook. “We look forward to continuing to work with the SEC as we pursue our investor protection mission.”

Rulemaking

The Board approved three rule proposals:

Proposals Relating to Registration of Offices and Remote Inspections – The Board approved the submission to the SEC of several proposals related to member firms’ supervision obligations and process-related changes in response to remote and hybrid work environments.
Amendments Relating to Routing Disclosures for OTC Equity Securities and Centralized Hosting of SEC Rule 606(a) Reports – The Board approved the submission to the SEC of proposed rule amendments to require members to: (a) publish order routing reports for held orders in OTC equity securities and submit them to FINRA for publication on the FINRA website; and (b) submit Regulation NMS Rule 606(a) order routing reports to FINRA for publication on the FINRA website.
Amendments to Rules Related to the Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Claims – The Board approved the submission to the SEC of proposed amendments to align FINRA rules with the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021.

For general information about FINRA’s rulemaking process, see www.finra.org/rules-guidance/rulemaking-process.

The next FINRA Board of Governors meeting is scheduled for May 11-12, 2022. More information regarding the Board's operations, including the membership and responsibilities of its committees, is available at www.finra.org/governance.

About FINRA

FINRA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to investor protection and market integrity. It regulates one critical part of the securities industry—brokerage firms doing business with the public in the United States. FINRA, overseen by the SEC, writes rules, examines for and enforces compliance with FINRA rules and federal securities laws, registers broker-dealer personnel and offers them education and training, and informs the investing public. In addition, FINRA provides surveillance and other regulatory services for equities and options markets, as well as trade reporting and other industry utilities. FINRA also administers a dispute resolution forum for investors and brokerage firms and their registered employees. For more information, visit www.finra.org.