The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced this week that it has 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 respect to 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.
Brad Bennett, FINRA Executive Vice President and Chief of Enforcement, said, “Trade confirmations and fee schedules must clearly reflect commission charges, and firms cannot disguise commissions by improperly describing them as charges for ancillary services. FINRA will continue to look closely at any firms that engage in these practices.”
The cases resulted from a targeted review of improper fees charged by broker-dealers in which FINRA found that the firms were routinely charging 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.
FINRA sanctioned the following firms:
In settling FINRA’s actions, the firms agreed to implement corrective action to remedy the handling fee-related violations. The 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. In addition, they will identify all transaction-based remuneration as commissions or mark-ups (mark-downs) rather than as postage, handling or any other miscellaneous fee. The 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.
In concluding these settlements, the firms neither admitted nor denied the charges, but consented to the entry of FINRA’s findings.