News

SEC Reinstates Finra’s Access to SARs

By Brian Monroe

The chief self-regulatory organization examining broker-dealers for anti-money laundering compliance is again allowed to have direct access to suspicious activity reports, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission confirmed Thursday. In a letter, the federal agency said that examiners from the Washington, D.C.-based Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra) have permission to review the reports, known as SARs. The clarification follows a December 2010 final rule by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) that barred self-regulatory organizations from accessing SARs without permission from the federal agencies that they work with. Since the rule went into effect in January 2011, Finra officials have...

TO READ THE FULL STORY