FINRA Announces Updates of the Interpretations of Financial and Operational Rules

SEC Financial Responsibility Rules

Summary

FINRA is updating the imbedded text of Securities Exchange Act (SEA) financial responsibility and reporting rules in the Interpretations of Financial and Operational Rules to reflect the effectiveness of certain amendments the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted.¹ The updated imbedded text relates to SEA Rules 15c3-1g and 17a-5.

Questions concerning this Notice should be directed to:

Background & Discussion

In August 2018, the SEC adopted amendments to several rules for broker-dealers. FINRA is updating the imbedded SEC rule text in the Interpretations of Financial and Operational Rules to reflect certain amendments to the financial responsibility and reporting rules that became effective on November 5, 2018.² The updated imbedded text relates to SEA Rules 15c3-1g and 17a-5.

These rule text updates are available in portable digital format (pdf) on FINRA's Interpretations of Financial and Operational Rules [http://www.finra.org/industry/interpretationsfor] page.

Further, SEC staff continues to communicate and issue written and oral interpretations of the financial responsibility and reporting rules. FINRA has previously updated the Interpretations of Financial and Operational Rules on its website in Regulatory Notices 08-56, 13-44, 14-06, 14-12, 14-25, 14-38, 15-25 and 18-03.

FINRA member firms and others that maintain the hardcopy version of the Interpretations of Financial and Operational Rules may refer to the accompanying updated pages, containing the aforementioned rule text updates, which are being made available to enable the replacement of existing pages in the hardcopy version of the Interpretations of Financial and Operational Rules. The filing instructions for the new pages are as follows:

¹See Exchange Act Release No. 83875 (August 17, 2018), 83 FR 50148 (October 4, 2018) (Final Rule: Disclosure Update and Simplification).

²See note 1.