CarbonMeta Technologies Inc (COWI)

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OTish: F+INRA = new regulator. what an appropriate acronym IMO.

Alphabet soup: NYSE Regulation + NASD = FINRA

By Nicholas Rummell
July 27, 2007

There’s a new sheriff in town for financial services firms: the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

Well, maybe not that new. The new acronym comes from the merger of the NASD and the regulatory arm of the New York Stock Exchange, which officially merged yesterday after the Securities and Exchange Commission gave final approval. The two self-regulatory organizations last year announced plans to consolidate their regulatory functions late last year.

FINRA, like all self regulatory organizations, or SROs, will operate under SEC oversight but will be the primary regulator for broker-dealers, as well as several stock markets, including the Big Board, Nasdaq and the American Stock Exchange.

Consolidating self-regulatory organizations into a single regulator has been something many industry members have called for. It’s also one of the issues being bandied about in several studies of U.S. competitiveness. Many felt that the NASD and NYSE operated using different rules and procedures, leading to duplicative regulation.

However, the NASD-NYSE merger also had its share of opposition, mostly from small, independent broker-dealers who felt that the Big Board was more focused on large firms. Negotiations had been held after a protest that finalized how many small-firm representatives would sit on the new regulator’s board of governors.

http://www.financialweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070727/REG/70727002/1036