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SIFMA submitted the letter to Mary Jo White, chair of SEC, in response to her recent statement on the SEC’s review of Securities Industry Processors (SIPs) following the August 22 SIP outage that led to a halt in trading of NASDAQ-listed securities.
SIFMA’s letter notes more broadly that the August 22nd SIP outage is a symptom of the outdated system by which critical market data is controlled and distributed. “The events of August 22nd highlight the critical nature of the SIPs in maintaining fair and orderly markets and the need for regulators and market participants to collaborate to make sure the markets are operationally resilient", said Randy Snook, executive vice president, business policies and practices. “Further, we believe the time is time is right for a broader review of SIPs to address concerns with transparency and governance. The current system for distributing market data was developed over 30 years ago. It’s time to re-evaluate what's best for the markets.”
SIFMA believes it is imperative that the broker-dealer and investment communities play an active and substantive role with the SROs as the SIP enhancement process moves forward from identifying preliminary concepts to developing concrete proposals. Collaboration between SROs and the broker-dealer community is essential to crafting comprehensive proposals that strengthen the resiliency of equity market structure in the USA.