FINRA Adopts New Intraday Margin Standards to Replace the Day Trading Margin Requirements

Features

• FINRA Adopts New Intraday Margin Standards to Replace the Day Trading Margin Requirements
  On April 14, the SEC approved SR-FINRA-2025-017, which establishes new intraday margin standards to replace the longstanding day trading margin requirements under FINRA Rule 4210, including the day trade count requirements for designating a customer as a “pattern day trader” and the $25,000 pattern day trader minimum equity requirement. The new standards will give customers more freedom to participate in the markets while also ensuring customers maintain equity in their margin account commensurate with the amount of market exposure they have at any given point in time during the trading day. This rule change advances the FINRA Forward Rule Modernization initiative to update requirements, facilitate innovation, and reduce unnecessary burdens while maintaining investor protection. FINRA will issue a regulatory notice to announce the effective date of the rule change, which will be 45 days from publication of the regulatory notice. Members that may need more time to implement the rule change will be permitted to phase in their implementation over a period of 18 months from publication of the regulatory notice.
   
• Now Live: Enhanced Form New Member Application
  FINRA is modernizing the New Member Application (NMA) experience with an enhanced Form NMA, which officially launched today. These enhancements are part of the FINRA Forward initiative to support member compliance and are intended to streamline the application process for prospective FINRA members. The enhancements include streamlined document upload and cross-referencing capabilities, interactive navigation tools with integrated support resources, automatic progress saving, standardized response fields with clear required field identification, and refined question structure with clarified information requests. Support resources include Reg. Notice 26-09, a live demonstration, and user guides available at Membership Application Program Tools.
   
• ICYMI: Financial Intelligence Fusion Center Goes Live
  FINRA has officially launched the Financial Intelligence Fusion Center (FIFC), a secure portal for FINRA and its member firms to share timely intelligence about cybersecurity and fraud threats and coordinate responses. We encourage member firms to opt into the FIFC to gain access to this centralized portal for intelligence sharing among firms and FINRA. Access to the FIFC is enabled by a firm’s Super Account Administrator (SAA). Contact your SAA to discuss entitling FIFC access for the appropriate personnel.
   
• ICYMI: FINRA Foundation Research on Social Media-Informed Retail Investors
  The FINRA Investor Education Foundation released a new report, Finfluencer Followers and Social Media Scrollers: The Profile, Patterns, and Pitfalls of Social-Media-Informed Retail Investors. The research, drawn from the Investor Survey component of the 2024 National Financial Capability Study, reveals that while social media is successfully engaging previously underrepresented market participants, retail investors who use it to inform their investment decisions may also face elevated fraud risk due to knowledge gaps. 
   
• ICYMI: New Podcast on FINRA’s Trade Reporting Enhancements
  In the latest episode of FINRA Unscripted, Chris Stone, FINRA Vice President, Transparency Services, takes us inside the systems that make market transparency possible. Stone explains how FINRA recently extended trade reporting hours to 4 a.m. Eastern Time (ET), why the industry is preparing for 23-hour, 5-day-a-week trading by December 2026, and how FINRA’s recently implemented fractional share reporting is eliminating what researchers called “phantom volume.”
   
• ICYMI: FINRA Announces Upcoming Board of Governors Election
  FINRA recently posted an Election Notice announcing an upcoming Board election, which will start in June, for a small firm seat and a large firm seat. Scott Curtis, Chief Operating Officer of Raymond James Financial, is the FINRA nominee for the large firm seat. FINRA did not nominate a candidate for the small firm seat; individuals interested in petitioning to become a candidate should review the Election Notice for more information on the petition process and can contact the Office of the Corporate Secretary with questions. The 45-day petition period runs until May 21; petitions must be submitted to FINRA by that date.

• FINRA publishes disciplinary actions to remind members of specific conduct that violates FINRA rules and may result in disciplinary action. The March 2026 Monthly Disciplinary Actions are available here.