FINRA CEO Robert Cook. (Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority plans to issue guidance in the coming months on areas that broker-dealers should focus on regarding Regulation Best Interest compliance and also is mulling some exam changes, FINRA CEO Robert Cook said Wednesday.
Three months into Reg BI taking hold, FINRA is assessing what it's noticed recently during exams "with a view to develop a response to this question: What are we seeing early days, and what guidance would we suggest to the industry about areas to focus on?" Cook said during the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association's Compliance & Legal virtual event.
"There are some areas that we've identified where we see some trends or patterns where firms might think about spending some more time" in terms of Reg BI compliance, Cook said.
"We recognize this was put into place in the middle of a pandemic or the final stages occurred during the middle of a pandemic," he explained. "A lot of effort by firms went into coming into compliance. There may be some areas where, now that it's up and running, [we can] go back and make sure things are working as well as they could."
