Diversified financial services firm, Cowen Inc., has successfully completed a Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) go-live by using the Compliance Workbench platform of n-Tier, the latter recently announced.
CAT, which was built by FINRA and a number of US exchanges, is a database that was designed to collect and identify every order, cancellation, modification, and trade Execution for equities and options listed on exchanges across the United States.
n-Tier provides technology solutions to allow companies to minimize the risks and costs of regulatory reporting. By selecting the compliance platform, Cowen has implemented a process that aggregates and validates CAT reports from external vendors and internal trading systems.
John Holmes, Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer, Cowen Inc.
Source: Cowen, Inc.
Commenting on the successful go-live, John Holmes, Chief Operating Officer at Cowen said in the statement: "We have worked with n-Tier for years on a range of regulatory reporting projects and are continually impressed with their leading technology, in-depth industry experience and ability to deliver projects on time and without issue. With the implementation of this initial phase of CAT behind us, we are confident that we will be able to actively manage the expansion of CAT reporting obligations."
SEC delays CAT reporting
Under the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Regulation , brokers will soon need to start sending sensitive client trading information to the CAT database.
As Finance Magnates reported, broker-dealer reporting on the database went live back in April, however, on the 17th of March, the SEC released a no-action letter in which the regulator outlined that its staff will not enforce CAT implementation deadlines due to COVID-19.
Whilst initial equities and options reporting for large firms is now in force, full reporting for equities, options, customer, and accounts is not required until 2021 and 2022.
Under the agreement announced on Wednesday, n-Tier's platform gives Cowen comprehensive validation of its reporting data, as well as the ability to automatically correct pre-submission reporting deficiencies.
"Cowen has been a great partner over the years and we are very happy to be a part of their successful regulatory reporting initiatives," added Founder and CEO of n-Tier, Peter Gargone, in the statement.
"Throughout the CAT rollout we have been impressed with the skills and professionalism of their team and we look forward to helping them stay ahead of CAT requirements and meet any other regulatory reporting challenges that come their way."
