Insights
Practical guidance on FINRA regulations, secure communications, and what regulated financial firms actually need to know — written plainly.
Every Slack message, Teams thread, and iMessage from a registered rep is a business record under FINRA Rule 17a-4. Most firms don't treat it that way — and the examination data shows it.
Read article →Slack and Microsoft Teams are enterprise-grade tools. They're not compliance-grade tools. There's a meaningful difference — and regulators are starting to make firms feel it.
Read article →The exam request arrives. Your compliance officer starts pulling records. What happens next depends almost entirely on decisions your firm made long before that letter showed up.
Read article →Rule 17a-4 is broad. Subsection (f) is where electronic records get specific — and where most firms fall short without knowing it.
Read article →WORM isn't a vendor claim. It's a technical requirement under SEC Rule 17a-4(f). Most communications platforms don't satisfy it — and most firms don't know the difference.
Read article →FINRA Rule 3110 requires firms to supervise their registered reps. When communications are fragmented across ten platforms, that supervision becomes structurally impossible — and most firms haven't noticed.
Read article →The rules that apply to a 5,000-rep firm apply equally to a firm with twelve. The compliance infrastructure available to the two firms is not equal at all.
Read article →