The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority today fined five broker-dealers for understating the amount of total commissions charged to customers in trade confirmations and on fee schedules by mischaracterizing a portion of the commission charges as fees for handling services.

With each of these firms, the handling fees were designed to serve as a source of additional transaction based remuneration for the firm and thus were far in excess of the cost of the handling-related services the firms provided.

"Trade confirmations and fee schedules must clearly reflect commission charges, and firms cannot disguise commissions by improperly describing them as charges for ancillary services," said Brad Bennett, Finra executive vice president and chief of enforcement.

The cases resulted from a review of improper fees charged by broker-dealers where Finra found that the firms routinely charged customers for handling fees that far exceeded the actual cost of the direct handling-related services the firms incurred in processing securities transactions. In some cases, firms charged a handling fee of almost $100 per transaction and earned a substantial percentage of their revenue from these fees.

In concluding these settlements, the firms neither admitted nor denied the charges, but consented to the entry of FINRA's findings.

Finra sanctioned the following firms:

* Pointe Capital, Inc. (now known as JHS Capital Advisors, Inc.), of Boca Raton, Fla., was fined $300,000 for charging customers a handling fee as high as $95 per trade in addition to a commission. Additional violations included inadequate supervisory procedures.

*John Thomas Financial, of New York, N.Y., was fined $275,000 for charging its customers a handling fee as high as $75 per trade in addition to a commission. (Additional violations included effecting material changes in its business operations without prior approval from Finra, and deficiencies in complaint reporting, supervisory controls and certifications, branch office supervision and recordkeeping.)

* First Midwest Securities, Inc., of Bloomington, Ill., was fined $150,000. The firm charged customers a handling fee as high as $99 per trade in addition to a commission. (Additional violations included unfair and unreasonable markups/markdowns and inadequate written supervisory procedures.)

* A&F Financial Securities, Inc., of Syosset, N.Y., was fined $125,000. The firm charged its customers a handling fee of $65 per trade in addition to a commission. (Additional violations included inadequate supervisory system and procedures, and failure to comply with continuing education requirement.)

* Salomon Whitney LLC, of Babylon Village, N.Y., was fined $60,000. The firm charged its customers a handling fee as high as $69 per trade in addition to a commission.

In settling Finra's actions, the firms agreed to implement corrective action to remedy the handling fee-related violations.

All firms agreed to fully and accurately disclose the specific service performed and the related fee on confirmations and any other communications with a customer where fees are discussed. They will also identify all transaction-based remuneration as commissions or mark-ups (mark-downs) rather than as postage, handling or any other miscellaneous fee.

Firms also agreed to revise their written supervisory procedures and to provide training to the firms' registered representatives and associated persons related to transaction-based remuneration, reasonable fees, their appropriate disclosure to customers and retention of related records.