Perspective on how the recent vote impacts Small firms.
Elizabeth M. Attanasio, CPA, Partner, Accounting and Compliance International
For small broker-dealers, every dollar matters. The costs associated with operating in a highly regulated industry can weigh particularly heavily on smaller firms, where compliance expenses are spread across fewer employees, clients, and revenue streams.
That is why several recent actions approved by FINRA’s Board of Governors are worth celebrating:
- A Trading Activity Fee (TAF) holiday from October 1 through December 31, 2026;
- A rebate of a portion of 2026 regulatory fees for eligible member firms and
- A two-year delay of previously adopted fee increases.
These updates are significant because they reflect a practical response to changing financial conditions. Record industry revenues and trading volumes generated higher-than-anticipated fee collections, while FINRA’s expenses came in below projections. Rather than simply continuing on the existing fee path, the Board approved measures designed to address those surplus revenues and provide relief to member firms.
For small broker-dealers, that matters.
Regulatory costs don’t necessarily get smaller because your firm does. Audit fees, registration costs, compliance, technology, FinOp are all real costs—and those costs can hit a small firm particularly hard.
The financial pressures facing those firms are issues Jay Gettenberg raised prior to his election to the FINRA Board of Governors. These recent actions address an issue that matters greatly to the small-firm community: the cost of operating in a highly regulated industry.
FINRA has also emphasized that ongoing engagement from its members is essential to its effectiveness as a self-regulatory organization. That makes continued participation from the small-firm community especially important.
For ACI, which has served broker-dealers for more than four decades, we applaud FINRA’s Board for taking action that provides meaningful relief to member firms. That is a win for the small-firm community—and one worth celebrating.