The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) is a private, non-governmental self-regulatory organisation (SRO) authorised by the US Congress to regulate broker-dealers — firms and individuals that buy and sell securities on behalf of customers or for their own accounts — operating in the United States. FINRA was created in 2007 through the merger of the regulatory arm of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), and currently oversees approximately 3,400 member firms and around 600,000 registered securities professionals. Although FINRA is not a government agency, it operates under the oversight of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and exercises genuine regulatory authority — including the power to write and enforce rules, conduct examinations of member firms, and bring disciplinary proceedings that can result in fines, suspensions, and permanent bars from the securities industry.
In the financial crime compliance context, FINRA plays a central role in AML supervision for the US broker-dealer sector. Under FINRA Rule 3310, all member firms are required to establish and implement a written AML compliance programme that is reasonably designed to achieve and monitor compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act and its implementing regulations — including requirements for customer identification, suspicious activity reporting, and transaction monitoring. FINRA conducts regular examinations of its member firms’ AML programmes and has consistently identified AML as one of its top examination priorities, publishing annual exam findings that effectively serve as a practical guide to the most common AML deficiencies observed across the broker-dealer industry. FINRA also operates in close coordination with FinCEN and the SEC on financial crime matters, and its enforcement actions — which in serious cases can involve fines of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars against major broker-dealers — represent one of the most active AML enforcement programmes in the US financial sector. For compliance professionals working in or with the US securities industry, FINRA’s rules, guidance, and examination findings are as important a reference point as FinCEN’s own BSA guidance.
