Finra's regulatory chief defended the agency against charges it is not doing enough to rid the brokerage industry of scoundrels.
“More than any other regulator we devote more resources to finding bad actors,” Finra Regulatory Operations Chief Susan Axelrod said at Finra's annual conference in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday.
She added Finra President and CEO Robert Cook has made identifying bad brokers and keeping them out of the financial services industry a high priority.
This year, Finra is enhancing its efforts in this area by creating a special team that will focus on firms that hire clusters of bad brokers who sometimes had been working together and fired from other operations.
She noted data analytics has gone a long way to helping Finra identify brokers who are regularly breaking regulations.
In further praise for the financial regulator she works for, Axelrod said the agency’s two-year-old senior helpline has been a success.
The nearly 10,000 calls the helpline has received have been mostly from investors seeking information rather than complaining about fraud.
When consumers have felt they have been wronged, she said, brokerages have been cooperative.
“There’s no arbitration. No lawyers. Just firms doing the right thing,” said Axelrod.
As a sidelight, she said calls have come from many nations overseas.