The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) recently released its annual top exam priorities for the 2017 calendar year. The OCIE is the SEC division which conducts examinations of registered investment adviser (RIA) firms and this priority list can help investment advisers better prepare for a regulatory audit. In general, the list of 2017 priorities closely mirrors the agency’s past 2015 and 2016 examination priority lists as well as recently issued risk alerts. Similar to past years, the OCIE is focused on three categories: important retail investor issues, risks specific to elderly and retiring investors, and assessing general market-wide risks.
To provide further guidance on the SEC’s 2017 exam priorities, we created a checklist that outlines top focus areas. Items addressed in the checklist include:
- Electronic Investment Advice: Robo-advisers.
- Wrap Fee Programs.
- Multi-Branch Advisers.
- Cybersecurity.