The Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (“OCIE”) has published a new statement relating to COVID-19, identifying a number issues, risks, and practices relevant to SEC-registered investment advisers and broker-dealers.
Covid-19, market volatility and remote working have significantly increased the number of operational, technological and commercial challenges and issues for financial firms, which consequently generate several regulatory and compliance questions. In response, the OCIE presents key compliance risks and considerations for broker-dealers and investment advisers in this statement. They also share recommendations into the following categories to outweigh these challenges:
The protection of investors’ assets
Supervision of personnel
Practices relating to fees, expenses, and financial transactions
Investment fraud
Business continuity
The protection of investor and other sensitive information
During this period, OCIE has continued to operate across the US, working closely with SEC registrants to understand the impact of the global covid crisis, address any questions and requests, and to ensure business continuity under the appropriate health and safety standards.
About SteelEye
SteelEye is a RegTech and data analytics firm that was established to reduce the complexity and cost of financial compliance and enable firms globally to manage their regulatory obligations through a single platform.
SteelEye’s ability to bring together, cleanse, index and analyse structured and unstructured data across all asset classes and communication types enables clients to effortlessly meet their regulatory needs, because when all this data is in one place, compliance becomes both easy and cost-effective. And with everything under one lens, firms also gain fresh insight into their business, helping them improve their efficiency and profitability.
To date, SteelEye has launched solutions for record keeping, trade reconstruction, transaction reporting, trade and communications surveillance, best execution reporting, transaction cost analysis and advanced analytics for regulations including MiFID II, EMIR, Dodd-Frank, SMCR and MAR.