On February 5, 2025, Robert Cook, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Financial Industry Regulatory Industry, Inc. (FINRA), announced that FINRA will not set an effective date for its recent amendments (the “Amendments”) to Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine (TRACE) reporting rules to reduce the current 15-minute timeframe to one minute for reporting transactions in relevant fixed income securities. The US Securities and Exchange Commission approved the Amendments in September 2024.
Following the SEC’s approval of the Amendments, FINRA continued to receive questions and concerns about implementing the shorter reporting requirements and the potential for unintended consequences for the markets. FINRA believes it is important to take more time to consider these questions and concerns and develop appropriate responses. As such, FINRA plans to prepare a new filing with the SEC to make substantive changes to the Amendments. The new filing is expected to (i) propose less significant reductions to current reporting timeframes for manual trades and (ii) address other TRACE requirements that may unnecessarily delay reporting, such as current requirements for reporting trade allocations. The new filing will be published for public comment and will require SEC approval before becoming effective.