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Protecting Retirement Savers Among 2018 SEC Examination Priorities

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) has retirement savers in mind this year. The OCIE on Feb. 7 announced its 2018 examination priorities.

The OCIE says that its protection of those saving for retirement will include focusing examinations on the disclosure and calculation of fees, expenses and other charges investors pay, the supervision of representatives selling products and services to investors, and the execution of customer orders in fixed income securities.

Other OCIE priorities for 2018 include:

  • examining the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board to evaluate the effectiveness of select operations and internal policies, procedures and controls;

  • prioritizing cybersecurity with an emphasis on governance and risk assessment, access rights and controls, data loss prevention, vendor management, training and incident response; and

  • reviewing compliance with applicable anti-money laundering requirements, including whether firms are appropriately adapting their AML programs to address their regulatory obligations.

And the OCIE says its priorities also include continuing to:

  • examine entities that provide services critical to the proper functioning of capital markets;

  • monitor the growth of cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings and examine registrants involved in their offer and sale to ensure that investors receive adequate disclosures about the risks associated with these investments; and

  • exercise oversight of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) by focusing examinations on FINRA's operations and regulatory programs and the quality of its examinations of broker-dealers and municipal advisors.