SEC OKs controversial registration plan for back-office workers

Discussion in 'Wall St. News' started by JamesL, Jun 17, 2011.

  1. JamesL

    JamesL

    June 17, 2011
    The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday approved a plan by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. that will create a new operations professional license, with a qualification exam and continuing-education requirements.

    The new rule marks a substantial expansion of registration requirements to include back-office personnel. Registration has historically been limited to individuals working in sales or trading.

    Finra will be announcing an effective date for the rule within the next two to three weeks, said Finra spokeswoman Nancy Condon. From the effective date, broker-dealers will have 60 days to identify covered employees.

    Those covered by the rule who already hold a Series 6 or 7 license, or have a supervisory license, would be exempt from taking the new exam. But they would have to register separately as operations professionals.

    Employees who are not now registered would have 12 months to pass the qualifying exam.

    The proposal was roundly blasted by industry participants when Finra floated the idea for comment last summer. In response, Finra made some minor changes, but the proposal remains controversial.

    Industry observers complained that Finra's definitions of covered operations personnel were unclear, and that the new program risked forcing many lower-level employees to register unnecessarily — including employees of outside vendors such as IT workers.

    Prior to the SEC's approval, Finra this week amended the proposal to clarify that only senior management with direct responsibility over the covered operational functions would be subject to the new registration requirement.

    In a letter to the SEC on Wednesday, Finra said the rule was necessary, because operations activities have "such significance [as] to require registration, qualification examination and continuing education requirements."

    http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20110617/FREE/110619941
     
  2. LeeD

    LeeD

    As a rule, the industry welcomes new qualification requirements. If the rules from the regulator set sufficient qualification criteria, the financial services companies are happy they are given the definitive measure of sufficient qualification and they don't have to check credit scores, run courses to cover recent regulatory changes or in fact do anything else.
     
  3. Rumblefish

    Rumblefish Guest

    It's just more fees to a government bureacracy that has failed investors. SEC has failed America.

    SEC has limited resources to investigate every freaking fraud in wall street and SEC 'internal' corruption and cover-ups.

    You might as well shut down the SEC and buyer beware on wall street.


    Buyer beware:

    1. Do you own due deligence
    2. Exchange, broker/dealer and analst and auditors are not liable for fraud etc.
    3. Invest at your own risk.
    4. Do your own anal inspection of business
    5. Hire your own private investigators before investing in a single penny.
     
  4. Added expense for financial companies. This is stupid.

    I can tell you first hand these exams don't mean shit and people that are dumb as a brick pass these exams all the time and still dont know anything about what they are doing.
     
  5. This is getting out of hand. It's just one thing after another. Someone needs to take all these sons of bitches down. SEC, FINRA. Demolish the offices, beat the employees senseless, tie them up and bury them in the sea.
     
  6. We need more Vince McCruddens in the world. That guy nailed it. They're not trying to regulate...they're trying to make another buck.
     
  7. "take all these sons of bitches down"

    "Demolish the offices"

    "beat the employees senseless"

    "tie them up and bury them in the sea"

    Another GAY, weenie rant...
    2000 of these make ya feel better, babycakes?
     
  8. holy crap, are you following me around ET? Pretty freakin weird. I guess the middle schools are closed today, so you probably don't have much else to do huh?