As I'm sure is true for many of you, one of my favorite pastimes is reading up on the latest FINRA changes. Recently, I was reading an article about FINRA's new rule 1230(b)(6). As you might imagine, fascinating stuff!
In order to make this a safer planet, FINRA is regulating operations personnel at broker-dealers across the country. Some operations people are going to be required to register with FINRA and pass a qualification exam. The only problem is no one really knows who is supposed to take the exam or which exam they are supposed to take.
How hard could it be to figure this out? I hopped on FINRA's website, confident things would be cleared up immediately. After a few clicks, there was all the information I could possibly want. FINRA, I learned, administers a number of different exams pertaining to the business of financial transactions.
For example, if you're new to this business, the kind of work you decide to do determines which FINRA exams you need to make cheat sheets for. I should add, FINRA numbers all of their exams and calls them "Series #." They do this so they can continue creating exams for us to take forever.
If you're looking at a principal registration, let me direct you to a few exams you may be subjected to: Series 4, 9, 10, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 39, 51 and 53. Those are all pretty self-explanatory.
What if you want to be a financial advisor? Then you're going to have to deal with the Series 6, 7 or the underappreciated Series 17. Naturally, you'll want to make sure you're legal in Canada so you have to take the Canadian modules as well, commonly known as Series 37 and 38.
