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HomeSEC Commissioner Stein: We Must Better Understand FINRA
Posted by Larry Doyle on February 12th, 2014 6:13 AM |
Who oversees the private, Wall Street funded police detail, aka FINRA, that I have long maintained operates as little more than meter maids?
The SEC, that’s who.
Or at least the SEC is supposed to regulate and oversee FINRA. Whether the SEC effectively oversees an organization which on its face appears to be loaded with conflicts of interest — if not much worse — is the stuff on which books are written.
As a strident critic of both the self-regulator and the self-regulatory model, I have long called for FINRA’s doors and windows to be opened so America can really learn what goes on within this organization and its relationships with the very banks on Wall Street that fund it. Who seems to be joining my call for a serious review of FINRA? (more…)
Without Freedom of Information, Who Will Keep the Regulators Honest?
Posted by Larry Doyle on September 16th, 2010 7:36 AM |
Information is everything.
Without access to information, how can we ever learn the full and true stories currently buried beneath our financial and economic landscape? Unearthing information through every means possible is a tedious — but necessary — pursuit if we are ever to learn our mistakes and failings of the past so that we can improve our economic standing in the future.
While those in Washington would maintain that they are charged with unearthing this information, there is little doubt that the American populace at large has little confidence in the rigor of that pursuit. The greatest of Jesuit principles instilled in me from my days at Holy Cross is the ‘never ending pursuit of the truth.’ That pursuit brings us today to a story which has received significant coverage here at Sense on Cents, but not nearly enough coverage elsewhere. Let’s navigate as The Wall Street Journal writes, SEC Looks to Allay Fears on FOIA Limits: (more…)
FINRA Fraud Team Must Look in the Mirror
Posted by Larry Doyle on April 16th, 2010 10:14 AM |
A report released yesterday by MarketWatch highlights the fact that the Wall Street self-regulator FINRA is launching a new initiative to target fraud within its purview of the financial industry. This initiative, designated the Office of Fraud Detection and Market Intelligence, will be headed by a longstanding FINRA employee, Cameron Funkhouser. Let’s navigate and offer insightful critique and analysis.
From the MarketWatch report entitled, Wall Street Watchdog Promises to Show More Teeth:
Wall Street’s self-regulatory body that self-admittedly failed to detect 2008’s major financial scandals has a plan to not miss the next one. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is touting its new fraud team as the key to spotting another Bernard Madoff. (more…)
The BIG Hole in Financial Regulatory Reform
Posted by Larry Doyle on March 22nd, 2010 4:24 PM |
Why am I so skeptical that Senator Chris Dodd’s proposed Financial Regulatory Reform (for overachievers in the audience, the link connects to the 89-page proposal) will truly change behaviors on Wall Street? For the very simple reason that I have seen no highlighting of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority within the proposed Financial Regulatory Reform. Strike you as a little odd? It strikes me that the Wall Street lobby is hard at work keeping its self-regulator, that being FINRA, right where they want it.
Against this backdrop, I was pleasantly surprised to see highly regarded Barron’s columnist Jim McTague reference that the proposed reform would promote transparency and accountability of FINRA. (more…)
