Sterling Trading Tech (STT), a leader in compliance, risk and infrastructure solutions for equity, options and futures trading, today announced they have been certified by FINRA as an authorised CAT (Consolidated Audit Trail) Reporting Agent.After completing rigorous CAT beta-testing in FINRA’s test environment, STT has successfully completed file submissions in the production environment for all clients that have been FINRA approved for production reporting.
“Our team has dedicated hours of time and resources toward receiving this certification from FINRA,” says Erik Schmidt, Sterling Trading Tech Managing Director of Client Services. “We’ve stayed ahead of the FINRA implementation schedule in order to be as prepared as possible to serve as the designated CAT reporting agent for our clients.”
The CAT certification process involves preparing and submitting test data to the portal, passing data integrity checks, and verifying the submissions with STT’s respective clients. The certification requires a 100 per cent success rate for file integrity submission and a less than 5 per cent error rate across all events submitted.
Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, the Security and Exchanges Commission’s Division of Trading Markets (SEC) delayed CAT Reporting deadlines to 22 June for equities (2A) and July 20th for options (2B). STT began its beta testing at the beginning of the year and is confident in its ability to submit files without reporting issues by offering a secure and direct FTP connection to FINRA for its CAT reporting.
“With the significant increase of volatility and volume of trades, we understand the importance for regulators and our clients to more efficiently track activity in eligible securities throughout the US markets,” says Farid Naib, CEO of Sterling Trading Tech. “We’re eager to make sure that our clients, who are obligated to submit to FINRA, can start production environment reporting.”
