Just yesterday, FINRA issued its annual regulatory and examinations priorities letter.   In keeping with its tradition, FINRA’s list keeps getting longer with each passing year, and it does not seem that FINRA has deleted anything from prior years.  Nonetheless, we will be discussing this letter in more detail in later posts but wanted to let everyone know that FINRA seems to be concerned with: complex product suitability; recidivist brokers; conflicts of interest; the suitability of recommendations to retail investors for complex products,  including structured products with interest rate sensitivity; private REITS; frontier emerging market funds; MBS; long duration bond funds; wealth management practices and proprietary products; protection of customer data; IRA rollovers; IPOs; private placement solicitations and accredited investor status; AML; protecting senior investors; liquidity risk and firm stress-testing; net capital calculations; auditor independence; and municipal securities.  FINRA also created a new enforcement group to prosecute cases against brokers with disciplinary histories, and to review member firm’s hiring and supervisory practices regarding brokers’ previous issues.  See http://www.finra.org/web/groups/industry/@ip/@reg/@guide/documents/industry/p419710.pdf.