FINRA Updates Designation Criteria to Require Firms Reporting U.S. Treasury Securities to TRACE to Participate in FINRA's Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery Testing
Regulatory Notice | |
Notice Type Guidance |
Referenced Rules & Notices FINRA Rule 4380 SEC Rule 1001 SEC Rule 1004 Regulatory Notice 15-43 |
Suggested Routing Compliance Legal Operations Systems Trading Training |
Key Topics Business Continuity Disaster Recovery Planning Regulation SCI TRACE U.S. Treasury Securities |
Summary
As required by Regulation Systems Compliance and Integrity (Regulation SCI), FINRA, in 2015, adopted Rule 4380 requiring member firm participation in business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) testing.1 The rule authorizes FINRA to designate firms that must participate in FINRA's annual BC/DR test based on established standards, which FINRA published in Regulatory Notice 15-43. Since FINRA published Notice 15-43, it began collecting transaction reports for U.S. Treasury securities. This Notice updates the criteria in Notice 15-43 to include criteria for designating firms that report a significant volume of transactions in U.S. Treasury securities to TRACE for mandatory BC/DR testing participation.
Questions regarding this Notice should be directed to:
Background and Discussion
Regulation SCI requires that FINRA, as an SCI entity, establish, maintain, and enforce written policies and procedures that address, among other things, "[b]usiness continuity and disaster recovery plans that include maintaining backup and recovery capabilities sufficiently resilient and geographically diverse…."2 In addition, Regulation SCI requires each SCI entity, including FINRA, to designate firms that must participate in the testing of the entity's BC/DR plans.3
To comply with these Regulation SCI requirements, FINRA, in 2015, adopted Rule 4380, which authorizes FINRA to designate member firms according to established criteria that are designed to ensure participation by those firms that FINRA reasonably determines are, taken as a whole, the minimum necessary for the maintenance of fair and orderly markets in the event of the activation of its BC/DR plan.
FINRA then published Regulatory Notice 15-43 to establish the criteria that FINRA uses to designate firms under Rule 4380. Consistent with Notice 15-43, FINRA designates firms for mandatory BC/DR test participation that account for significant activity on FINRA's equity trade reporting facilities (the FINRA/NYSE TRF, the FINRA/Nasdaq TRF and ORF), equity order audit trail system (OATS), equity quotation display and trade reporting facility (ADF), unlisted equity quotation display facility (OTCBB) and fixed income trade reporting system (TRACE).
Since Notice 15-43, FINRA expanded its TRACE system to create a new reporting process for U.S. Treasury securities.4 This Notice updates the criteria from Notice 15-43 to include criteria for designating firms that report a significant volume of transactions in Treasury securities to TRACE for mandatory BC/DR test participation. Specifically:
The criteria contained in Notice 15-43, including the criteria for designating TRACE participants that account for specified activity in corporate and agency debt securities and securitized products, remain otherwise unchanged. The designation process and test-related guidance in Notice 15-43 also remain unchanged. FINRA expects that the designation and test schedule will be similar this year to last year, with designation occurring in April and the test occurring in October.
1.See Securities Exchange Act Release No. 76360 (November 5, 2015), 80 FR 70043 (November 12, 2015) (Notice of Filing and Immediate Effectiveness of SR-FINRA-2015-046).
2. SEC Rule 1001(a)(2)(v).
3. SEC Rule 1004.
4.See Regulatory Notice 16-39 (October 2016).