At its mid-May conference, held in Washington, D. C., Finra’ s executives spoke about their plans to modernize the self-regulatory body, which currently oversees the nation’ s 3,300 broker-dealers and 628,392 registered reps( according to its 2023 count). One of those plans was to push ahead with its“ FINRA Forward” initiatives, a campaign to improve its effectiveness and efficiency.

Finra President and CEO Robert Cook described this strategic initiative to modernize regulation, protect investors and bolster the resilience of its member firms in the face of rapid technological and structural change.“ Firms are changing, markets are changing, investors are changing, so we have to change as well,” Cook said.“ We’ re taking this moment to surge again and redirect our energy toward being the best self-regulatory organization we can be.”

The initiative follows earlier modernization efforts under FINRA360 but represents a broader push to incorporate member feedback, strengthen rule relevancy, and expand support in navigating today’ s complex environment, officials said.

At the forefront of his initiative, Cook said he wants to modernize the Finra rule book to match modern realities.“ Our rules were often written for a brick-and-mortar world. That’ s no longer how most firms operate,” he said.

The proposal aims to simplify and consolidate rules, reducing unnecessary oversight on low-risk activities like part-time jobs or non-securities work, he said.“ It’ s not about increasing burden,” Cook said.“ It’ s about focusing on what matters.”

Finra also unveiled its enhanced Financial Intelligence Fusion Center, a new hub designed to accelerate intelligence sharing and strengthen collaboration between member firms, regulators, and law enforcement.

Greg Ruppert, Finra’ s executive vice president of member supervision, underscored the urgency, saying,“ It’ s not a question of if your firm will face a cyberattack— it’ s when. We need to be proactive, not reactive.”

Finra added that it has stepped up its fraud-fighting efforts. Since the Covid-19

“ Our rules were often written for a brick-and-mortar world. That’ s no longer how most firms operate.”

— Robert Cook, president and CEO of Finra

pandemic, criminal networks have become increasingly sophisticated, using phishing texts, fake social media personas and offshore pump-and-dump schemes to defraud both investors and firms.

To counter this, Finra has brought together data from complaints, market monitoring and fraud alerts. The organization has collaborated with Meta( the owner of Facebook), which is helping it identify and shut down fake advisor profiles and coordinated scams targeting retail investors.

The organization says the effort has led to a coordinated seizure by the FBI of $ 250 million in fraudulent assets, and a path for over 170 victims to potentially recover lost funds.“ We’ re becoming the disruptors,” said Ruppert.“ By forcing criminals to evolve and making it more expensive for them to operate, we’ re shifting the fight in our favor.”

Finra is also prioritizing the collection of real-time, firm-specific compliance problems that have the most risk to customers and broker-dealers themselves. Finra is zeroing in on issues including Regulation

Best Interest failures, inadequate oversight and disclosure and cybersecurity lapses. Jim Reese, Finra’ s head of strategic intelligence, said,“ We’ ve evolved from general oversight to real-time intelligence operations. We’ re working to get … actionable insights into your hands faster.”

Still, it’ s unclear whether these moves will be enough to appease the Finra’ s detractors.

In early April, Michigan Rep. Lisa McClain introduced legislation that would eliminate Finra’ s role as a regulator and move its duties to the SEC.“ FINRA has drifted far from its intended purpose of safeguarding investors and ensuring fairness in financial markets. This bill puts the power

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JUNE 2025 | FINANCIAL ADVISOR MAGAZINE | 11