While firms have made improvements in how they handle compliance responsibilities in the last 10 years, they still have more work to do clarifying what they are selling to their customers, FINRA's president and chief executive Richard Ketchum has said. In a speech at FINRA's annual conference, Ketchum said firms had improved on how they managed conflicts with clients. The coordination between compliance, risk management and the legal functions had also improved, with compliance often asked to participate in the risk management functions of the broker dealer. But he said FINRA continued to see abuses with the sales of complex and speculative products to clients in the wake of the financial crisis. Investors are increasingly taking on products where they don't understand the risks in the products, he said. "We're not in the business of telling firms what strategies to recommend or not. We're in the business of making sure they recommend suitable investments. That means they thoroughly
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