Ten years ago, SiteQuest Technologies was created with the mission to make compliance supervision easier and more efficient by providing user-friendly applications to help financial firms stay compliant in the ever-changing digital world. Working side-by-side, truly listening to what our customers need and want, and developing solutions to meet those needs is still is our focus today.

With our customers in mind, we are excited to announce that SiteQuest Technologies is updating its name to SiteQuest Compliance. As rules and regulations evolve, our customers’ challenges are ever-increasing. From workflows to policies, to website monitoring and archiving, to internet supervision, to discovering undisclosed OBAs and social media accounts, our suite of compliance solutions provide financial firms with the tools they need.

While our name has changed, our values have not. As a company, and as individuals, we value integrity, honesty, continual improvement, and innovation. We are committed to our customers and work with them as partners, to be an industry leader in compliance applications.

Our SiteQuest Compliance team brings many years of experience in this industry. We know the challenges compliance and supervision brings, and we look forward to many more years of serving our great customers and partners.

In alignment with the adoption of a new name, SiteQuest Compliance has launched a new website at SQCOMPLIANCE.COM.

Thank you for visiting our new website. Take a moment and look around. Contact us to see how our applications will assist you with your everyday compliance needs and challenges.

 
James Cella
President & CEO
james@sqcompliance.com
801-896-0951

A securities firm and its chief compliance officer were fined $225,000 by FINRA and required to retain an expert to evaluate and approve its written supervisory procedures (WSPs).

** We would like to note that the actions of this CCO are not the norm. This person committed many willful violations which led to this fine. But, many of the violations were in direct relation to supervision. SiteQuest Compliance provides solutions to CCO in regards to internet and website supervision. That is the primary focus of our article review.

NASD Rule 3010 required that FINRA member firms have reasonable supervisory procedures. The CCO in this case was responsible for reviewing and drafting the firm’s WSPs, and the WSPs provided that all advertising would be reviewed for misleading or inaccurate statements and that the firm’s president, would do so. The firm’s WSPs also specified that “all business messages on the internet shall be considered advertising.” And NASD Rule 2210 defined “advertisements” to include “any material . . . that is published, or used in any electronic . . . public media, including any website.” The NAC faulted the CCO for not “identifying” in the WSPs that “websites are advertising to be reviewed”; its rationale for holding the CCO liable when “the firm’s procedures did not specifically state that websites were advertising.” One registered advisor for this securities firm created two non-password-protected, publicly available websites. This firm and the CCO didn’t ensure appropriate review and supervision of these websites as advertising.

In the end, the NEC found that the firm’s failure to supervise the websites violated NASD Rules 3010 and 2110 and FINRA Rule 2010.
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Our SQWatcher application would have been a great resource and support for this securities firm. SQWatcher is a web-based solution that TRACKS, MONITORS, and DOCUMENTS your websites assisting with your compliance. With SQWatcher, you have a partner that is built to support your firm, knowing that your required websites are being monitored and archived with tools that will alert you if there is a problem. With an easy to use interface, we will personally support you through the implementation and learning process, continually ongoing to ensure that you and your firm are getting the most out of this industry-leading application.

SiteQuest Compliance has over 15 years of industry experience supporting CCOs with their ever changing and increasingly complex job requirements.

Every day, thousands of advisors and advisor websites are being monitored and documented with the aid of our industry-leading compliance and supervision applications. We are proud to be a partner in compliance. We would love to discuss your compliance concerns. Contact us today!

Source: (FINRA Case #2011027666902)

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After attending the May 2019 Annual FINRA Conference it is still evident that High-Risk Brokers are still a priority and an area of ongoing concern for FINRA. During this conference, we attended an informative break-out session with a discussion panel focusing on heightened supervision and Regulatory Notice 18-15.

It was right before last year’s annual conference that FINRA released its Regulatory Notice 18-15 regarding Heightened Supervision. FINRA noted that there are times where heightened supervision of an advisor may be appropriate. This notice stated that “FINRA requires member firms to establish and maintain supervisory systems for each of their associated persons and to test and verify annually that they have established reasonable procedures, including procedures for heightened supervision of associated persons, where necessary.”

This year’s discussion panel noted that FINRA is still looking for:

• Broker association with firms that have been previously disciplined by FINRA
• Previous disciplinary action taken against the broker by FINRA
• How many examinations have been failed by the broker?
• Age of disclosures. How long ago has the broker been disciplined?
• History of complaints and arbitrations
• Number of broker reviews done by FINRA

FINRA is also stressing this year that you examine these issues and identify “high-risk” brokers during the hiring process.

FINRA's 2019 Risk Monitoring and Examination Priorities Letter stated in regards to high-risk brokers that, “we will continue to enhance our examination program to evaluate how firms address these risks in their hiring practices and supervision programs.”

Innovative regulatory technology is playing a more prominent role for supervisors in their efforts to become more efficient, effective and risk-based in their supervision methods.

​With our Eagle Eye application’s risk-based approach your workflow processes will get easier, faster, and more effective. With increased system intelligence, enhanced lexicon capabilities, system learning, and detailed evaluation of results content, Eagle Eye automatically discovers your riskiest advisors and focuses your attention to where it’s needed.

Our Eagle Eye’s innovative “Heighten Supervision Mode”. The flexibility of this application empowers you to monitor your advisors at a variety of levels. For those that push the envelope a heightened level of supervision may be required. Eagle Eye will dig deep and with “Eagle Eye” precision discover and notify you of your advisors’ online presence.

Eagle Eye allows you to customize your supervisory approach without worry, and without additional charges or fees. Contact us today for your personalized demo and we will show you how our “Heightened Supervision Mode” will benefit your firm.

Are you concerned that you might have unidentified “high-risk” brokers at your firm? Have you identified a “high-risk” broker, but are unsure what to do next? Are you documenting this whole process and what you find? Let us help you address any concerns you might have. Contact us today.
 
Source: FINRA.org 

What controls does your firm have in place to aid you in discovering DBAs if your advisors are not disclosing them?
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In December 2018, FINRA released their annual “Report on Examination Findings”. This report serves as a resource for firms to strengthen their compliance programs and supervisory controls. This report focuses on selected observations from recent examinations that FINRA considers worth highlighting because of their potential significance, frequency, and impact on investors and the markets. ​

“DBAs and Communications With the Public” were one of the findings highlighted in this report. FINRA continues to find that many registered representatives are not compliant with FINRA Rule 3270 in trying to conceal their outside business activities. ​

Continually Making Sure Your Monitoring Records and Documentation are in Order
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This is not a preparedness matter to take lightly. Just last November FINRA fined a Tier One Company $2.6 million for failures in required electronic records and email retention. Read the full report.

The benefits of maintaining accurate, reliable and usable records can help to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your business. It will ensure your firm is able to access information when required and meet all accountability and compliance requirements. Below are some suggestions that are beneficial in establishing and making sure that an effective record keeping and documentation system is in order when you are monitoring your associates' web presence.

Planning. Establish what processes are needed for monitoring records to be effectively maintained and how this will be achieved. Planning a monitoring process will help you maintain a record keeping system that works for your firm and provides clear expectations for supervisors and compliance officers.

Consistency. To make it easier for compliance staff members to do their job, have information collected and stored in a consistent way within your firm's network; all staff should follow the same policies and procedures.

Communication. Have all your staff made aware of, and ensure they understand, the FINRA general supervision requirements. Verify that all supervisors know and follow the record keeping policies and procedures established by your firm. By communicating expectations clearly, you will benefit from consistent record keeping standards.

Modify. Don’t be afraid to modify your record keeping system if you find a more efficient way to achieve results. Regular reviews of your record keeping systems will keep them up-to-date and operating in a way that is beneficial to your firm.

Responsibility. Know your responsibilities—what to record, how to maintain records and how long they should be kept. Having accurate and reliable records during an audit will allow you to easily confirm your firm’s compliance.

Review. Encourage staff to provide feedback on how the monitoring record keeping system is working and how it could be improved. In doing this, you may gain valuable suggestions that will bring continuous improvement to your administrative records, improving the efficiencies of the practice.

Embrace technology. Regularly investing in technology will help improve the efficiency of your general supervision monitoring requirements. Your staff will appreciate any efforts made to improve and automate the task of keeping records, giving them additional job satisfaction.  Additionally, removing manual steps not only makes the record keeping process more efficient, it also makes the records uniform and reduces the risk of human error.

Our clients have found that Eagle Eye’s automated reporting features saves them valuable time. With just a click, you will have everything you need including when a result was found, who reviewed it, comments that were made and time stamps on every action taken on the account. From a regulatory point of view, with Eagle Eye’s automated screenshots you will have the full story of what content looked like at the time of review, giving you everything you need to respond to a regulator.
 
Supervising the web doesn’t have to be difficult! Let us show you how Eagle Eye is a more effective solution. Contact us today for a demo. ​

Eagle Eye has proven to be incredibly effective at reducing risk as it continues to find websites, social media accounts and blog posts on the web that pose compliant risks to a firm, but did you know that it also saves time?
 
Yes, a lot of time.
 
One of our Eagle Eye clients recently reported that they were able to reduce their web supervision time by 80% since switching to Eagle Eye. That’s a huge number. How’s the firm utilizing their newly found time?
 
First, they are expanding their web surveillance program by increasing the depth of Eagle Eye’s search results (at no additional cost by the way). By increasing the depth by 60%, they’ll be able to uncover additional risks while demonstrating to their examiners and regulators that they are meeting their requirements for reasonable supervision outlined in NASD 3010, IM 30103, 3012, FINRA 2210 and FINRA 3270.
 
What else are they doing with their extra time?  Well of course they now have time for those extra compliance projects that have been slipping through the cracks over the past few years.
 
With Eagle Eye, not only do you reduce risk and meet your compliance and supervision responsibilities, you save lots and lots of time.
 
​ Isn’t extra time a wonderful thing?

Eagle Eye has proven to be incredibly effective at reducing risk as it continues to find websites, social media accounts and blog posts on the web that pose compliant risks to a firm, but did you know that it also saves time?
 
Yes, a lot of time.
 
One of our Eagle Eye clients recently reported that they were able to reduce their web supervision time by 80% since switching to Eagle Eye. That’s a huge number. How’s the firm utilizing their newly found time?
 
First, they are expanding their web surveillance program by increasing the depth of Eagle Eye’s search results (at no additional cost by the way). By increasing the depth by 60%, they’ll be able to uncover additional risks while demonstrating to their examiners and regulators that they are meeting their requirements for reasonable supervision outlined in NASD 3010, IM 30103, 3012, FINRA 2210 and FINRA 3270.
 
What else are they doing with their extra time?  Well of course they now have time for those extra compliance projects that have been slipping through the cracks over the past few years.
 
With Eagle Eye, not only do you reduce risk and meet your compliance and supervision responsibilities, you save lots and lots of time.
 
​ Isn’t extra time a wonderful thing?