Many firms ahead of NRD deadline

(March 28, 2005) Firms have just over a year to clean up information on their registered personnel that appears in the National Registration Database (NRD).

When NRD was under development, archived information on registrants was flowed out of legacy systems to create the basic data files. But some of the information was out of date and firms were instructed by the Canadian Securities Administrators and self-regulators such as the IDA to update those files.

“The legacy systems had pretty basic stuff — just name, residence and date of birth in a lot of cases,” says Larry Boyce, the IDA’s head of sales compliance and registration. “All the stuff about registrations and regulatory disclosures had to be added.”

After the system went live, firms were directed to start cleaning up the files at a rate of 5% a month, with an eye toward being 95% complete by December 2005. They would then have until March 2006 to clean up the final 5% and finish the project.

Not all firms are waiting for the 2006 deadline. A compliance officer at a large bank-owned securities firm says he was ordered to get the job done by the end of this month, and he’s delivered. “People here were supposed to do it when NRD rolled out two years ago,” he says, “but there were some one-off cases where people didn’t get it done.”

To ensure completion, the compliance officer said he got his branch manager to back him up with an e-mail telling registered persons to provide any needed updates. Having management show the staff it had bought into the project lit a fire under the registered population and sped up the process, he added.

Boyce confirmed his latest statistics show a large number of firms have completed their Data Transfer Submission (DTS) forms for all registered personnel. Some firms have also used the process to submit updates on employees that include new designations and other earned credentials. Filing a DTS is free of charge but a small fee is applied to other updates.

“Most firms have chosen to finish them off as quickly as possible,” Boyce said. “The ones that are behind are the small firms. Of course a firm with three people doesn’t have to do much to increase its percentages.”

For its part, the MFDA uses the NRD as a tool to confirm registrations when it conducts compliance reviews, according to compliance director Karen McGuinness. “We’re essentially using it in a read-only capacity,” she notes. “We use it to confirm that people who are acting in a registered capacity are in fact registered.”

Filed by Philip Porado, Advisor’s Edge, philip.porado@advisor.rogers.com