“Fundamentally, CAT and Cards collect different information,” Finra said. “Unlike Cards, CAT will not contain information regarding customer risk tolerance, investment objectives, money movements, margin requirements and position data.”

CAT is another massive project currently under development for gathering trading data.

Finra said that with Cards up and running, it might be able to phase out several current data-collection programs, the Automated Exam Program and the Integrated National Surveillance and Information Technology Enhancements system (Insite). Neither of these systems are as expansive as Cards is envisioned to be.

Finra said existing analytic tools have been helpful in spotting suspicious trading and concentration of risky products.

“Finra used the data collected to determine … which investor accounts had high concentrations of Puerto Rican debt and conflicts of interest based on a firm’s proprietary accounts or employees selling their own holdings of Puerto Rican debt while their customers were buying these securities,” the notice said.

Finra estimated that Cards would cost clearing and carrying firms anywhere from $390,000 to $8.33 million to implement, and $76,000 to $2.44 million annually to run.

Finra said its own costs to develop Cards are estimated to run from $8 million to $12 million over a three-year period.

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