FINRA is asking for yet another extension of an emergency order allowing broker-dealers to inspect their branch offices remotely rather than in-person.
The proposal, submitted on Sept. 22, comes as the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority continues to seek approval for a pilot program to test out the efficacy of remote inspections as a permanent policy. If approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the extension request would allow remote inspections to continue under the terms of a previously adopted emergency order until June 30 of next year.
That order was initially approved in 2020 near the start of the
The pilot proposal itself was
If the pilot program is given the green light, then firms will have to take various steps to take part in it.
By contrast, "If the Commission disapproves the Remote Inspections Pilot Program Proposal, all firms would be impacted and would need additional time to staff, schedule and resume conducting on-site inspections of offices or locations," FINRA wrote.
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If approved, the pilot-program proposal would require firms that sign up to participate to collect data on things like the number of remote inspections they conducted in a given year and the number of remedial actions they took as a result. That information would then be compiled with comparable data from 2019, when most inspections were being done in person. From all of that, regulators would seek to gain an idea of whether their remote-work policies are in need of further tweaks.
