On May 21, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) issued Regulatory Notice 19-19 (Notice), which reminds applicable member firms that they must register with FINRA CAT, LLC (FINRA CAT) on or before June 27 for purposes of reporting to the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT). This reporting requirement relates to 1) member firms or national securities exchanges that handle orders or quotes in National Market System (NMS) stocks, over-the-counter equity securities or exchange listed options (each, an Industry Member); and 2) third-party CAT reporting agents that are or will be authorized to submit data to the CAT on behalf of an Industry Member. The CAT rules do not provide for any firms to be excluded or exempted from this reporting requirement.

Testing related to file submissions and data integrity are intended to occur in two phases: 1) for Equities (Phase 2a), such testing is scheduled to begin in December 2019 and go-live in April 2020; and 2) for Options (Phase 2b), such testing is scheduled to start as early as December 2019 and go-live in May 2020.

The registration form, which must be completed online, is available here.

The Notice is available here.