Bringing the Interpretation Handbook Into the Digital Age

For decades, the Interpretation Handbook has served as a key resource helping member firms comply with the SEC’s rules for calculating net capital, protecting customer assets, recordkeeping and financial reporting.

Given firms’ reliance on the Handbook, we have modernized it over the years, converting it from a physical book to a web-based version on FINRA.org. With FINRA Forward, we have gone a step further to add clickable links to useful source information that underpins these written interpretations.

This is a significant enhancement for member firms that may wish to use these materials to delve further into the financial responsibility rules. Many of the SEC no-action letters and other source documents pertaining to these rules date back to the seventies and eighties and, until now, were not easy to retrieve online.

By transforming the Handbook into an interactive digital resource, we ensure that firms of all sizes have easy access to key regulatory information that empowers them to better understand and comply with the rules. The new, modernized Interpretation Handbook is available here.

What we did:

• added hyperlinks to hundreds of SEC no-action letters, FINRA regulatory notices, and other regulatory materials throughout the Interpretation Handbook on FINRA.org;
• located numerous SEC no-action letters related to the financial responsibility rules, many of which were not otherwise available online; and
• converted hundreds of hard-copy source documents into digital form.

Benefits to firms:

• provides one-click access to a digital warehouse of source documents;
• saves large and small firms time on searches; and
• reduces burdens on operations staff and others working with these critical rules.

Next Steps. As a self-regulatory organization, FINRA is well-positioned to continuously improve this important resource for member firms. Going forward, we plan to further update the Handbook by linking additional information, such as published FAQs and new SEC guidance as they become available.