FINRA Issues A Packed Priorities Letter For 2015

FINRA opened 2015 with a lengthy and ambitious agenda of regulatory priorities. This year's Regulatory and Examination Priorities Letter is much longer than those issued the last two years, and repeats many of those years' priorities, while adding additional products and practices. Amidst this smorgasbord of priorities, several are highlighted in FINRA's accompanying press release, and so might have a favored place at the table:

• sale and supervision of interest-rate-sensitive and complex products, including alternative mutual funds;
• controls around the handling of wealth events in investors' lives;
• management of cybersecurity risks;
• treatment of senior investors; and
• high-risk brokers and removing bad actors from the securities industry.