Finra Tweaking Broker Data Surveillance

Wall Street’s self-regulator continues to tweak its efforts to collect substantial data from the brokerage industry to shore up support for the heavily criticized initiative that would increase its oversight. Richard Ketchum, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority chairman and chief executive, said Monday during the organization’s annual conference in Washington that the changes would ease the burden that the data surveillance would impose on firms. Finra said late last year it plans to introduce a proposal that would allow it to collect consolidated data about trading, brokerage products, and practices of firms and individual brokers to better understand—and potentially reduce—the overall risk in the industry, rather than responding only to individual violations and risks. More in the Wall Street Journal here.