Member Filing and Contact Information

The member-filing requirement is the regulatory address book. It looks administrative on the surface but carries real enforcement weight: a firm that lets its contact information go stale violates the rule independently of any underlying misconduct.

Member Contact Information Requirements

Members must report and keep current required contact information through FCS in FINRA Gateway, including:

• Executive Representative (required by the FINRA By-Laws): the firm's primary FINRA correspondent, who receives notices and votes in FINRA elections
• Emergency Contact Persons (ECPs) under the business-continuity-plan requirement (covered in the BCP section)
• Other prescribed regulatory contacts (compliance contact, anti-money laundering compliance officer designations, and similar role-based filings)

Required contact changes must be updated within 30 calendar days. The annual contact review is due within 17 business days after calendar-year end. A FINRA request for contact information generally requires a response within 15 calendar days, unless staff agrees to a longer period.

A member that fails to keep required contact information current violates the member-filing requirement even if no other misconduct has occurred.

Exam Tip: Gotchas

• Failure to maintain current information is itself a rule violation. This is the trap: a firm that fires the Executive Representative and forgets to file a replacement has violated the member-filing requirement even if everything else at the firm is fine. The exam likes this fact pattern because principals tend to view contact filings as low-priority paperwork.
• Registration records and regulatory contact filings are separate. The Central Registration Depository (CRD) handles firm and individual registration records, including Forms BD, U4 and U5. FCS handles required regulatory contacts. A headquarters address change requires review of the firm's Form BD record; updating a contact designation does not replace that registration filing.

Principal Designation Record

The firm must make and keep a record listing each principal of the firm responsible for establishing policies and procedures reasonably designed to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements that require acceptance or approval of a record by a principal.

The record identifies the individuals responsible for designing the firm's compliance procedures and managing the firm. A "principal" for this purpose includes:

• Any individual registered with FINRA as a principal (such as a Series 24 General Securities Principal, a Series 4 Registered Options Principal, or a Series 27 Financial and Operations Principal)
• Any individual registered as a branch manager
• Any other person delegated supervisory responsibility for the firm or its associated persons

Firms typically maintain this list within their written supervisory procedures (WSPs).

Think of it this way: The principal-designation record is the firm's roster of who-is-responsible-for-what in compliance design. If a regulator wants to know who decided that the firm's options approval process is reasonable, the answer must be in this record.

Exam Tip: Gotchas

• The principal-designation record is a list of WHO is responsible, not a record of the procedures themselves. The firm needs a current roster of designated principals. If a designated principal leaves the firm, the record must be updated to reflect the replacement before any compliance activity continues under the old designation.
• A non-principal cannot appear on the principal-designation record by virtue of seniority alone. The record names principals (or persons delegated supervisory responsibility). A senior compliance attorney who is not registered as a principal does not belong on the list unless the firm has formally delegated supervisory responsibility to them.

Retention of Compliance Records

Records related to compliance, supervisory, and procedural reviews must be preserved in an easily accessible place for at least 3 years (the first 2 in an easily accessible place). This category includes:

• Supervisory-system inspection reports
• Internal supervisory control reports
• CEO certifications
• BCP testing records and the BCP itself

These records form part of the firm's broader books-and-records retention regime, which sets retention periods for all records the firm must keep.

The firm's compliance, supervisory, and procedures manual follows a different clock: it is kept in an easily accessible place for the entire time it is in use, and for 3 years after it is no longer in use. Do not confuse that with the "3 years, first 2 accessible" period that applies to the ordinary review records in the table above.

Exam Tip: Gotchas

• The 3-year retention period for supervisory and compliance records is shorter than the retention for many other broker-dealer books and records. The exam will sometimes ask candidates to identify the retention period for a branch inspection report; the answer is 3 years (not 6 years, which applies to most general business records under the broker-dealer record retention requirement).
• Easily accessible is a defined storage condition, not just a casual term. The first 2 years of the 3-year retention must be stored where the firm can produce records on regulatory request without delay. Off-site archive that takes weeks to retrieve does not qualify for the easily accessible period.

What Should You Check on Exam Day?

• Can you distinguish firm and individual registration records in CRD from required regulatory contact filings in FCS?
• Do you know that letting Executive Representative or contact information go stale is itself a rule violation, independent of other misconduct?
• Can you state the retention period for supervisory and compliance review records, three years total with the first two easily accessible?
• Do you know that the compliance manual itself is retained for the entire time it is in use, plus three years after, unlike ordinary review records?