FINRA has released its 2025 Regulatory Oversight Report, providing critical guidance for member firms to fortify their compliance programs.
This report underscores FINRA’s commitment to transparency and details observations from its Member Supervision, Market Regulation, and Enforcement programs.
Executive Vice President and Head of Member Supervision at FINRA, Greg Ruppert, emphasized the report’s utility, stating, “This report is a valuable tool that we provide to member firms in support of our self-regulatory mission to protect investors and ensure market integrity. The topics reflect areas where FINRA has observed gaps in firm compliance programs as well as areas of emerging or increased risk. The report contains new topics, including a section addressing the third-party risk landscape, and many that will be familiar—such as cybersecurity and cyber-enabled fraud, communications with the public, and Regulation Best Interest and Form CRS—which have been updated to reflect evolving risks, industry trends and exam findings.”
Stephanie Dumont, Executive Vice President and Head of Market Regulation and Transparency Services at FINRA, elaborated on the organization’s efforts to monitor and secure markets, “Monitoring the markets, anticipating and addressing risks, identifying and investigating trading violations, and leveraging data are all part of the important work that FINRA does to safeguard the integrity of our vibrant capital markets to ensure that everyone can invest with confidence. Part of this work is reflected in our observations about manipulative trading, customer order handling and extended hours trading, among others, in this year’s Regulatory Oversight Report.”
Bill St. Louis, Executive Vice President and Head of Enforcement at FINRA, highlighted the role of transparency in regulatory effectiveness, “Transparency is essential to a healthy regulatory program, and that is what we aim to provide with the Regulatory Oversight Report. This report contains information and insights that were gathered during the course of our regulatory operations activities, as well as some of the effective practices we have observed, to help member firms enhance their compliance programs.”
The report introduces new content on several fronts including the increasing risks posed by third-party vendors, the complexities around sales practices and Regulation Best Interest (Reg BI) compliance for complex products like registered index-linked annuities (RILAs), and the challenges and opportunities presented by AI technology in the financial sector.
The insights provided in this report are designed to help firms review their supervisory procedures and controls and stay compliant with the evolving regulatory landscape. It serves as an indispensable resource for enhancing firm-wide compliance and maintaining market integrity.
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