FINRA Fines Vision Financial and Vision Brokerage for AML Violations

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has slapped Vision Financial Markets LLC (Vision Financial) and Vision Brokerage Services, LLC (Vision Brokerage) with a fine for AML violation.

Vision Brokerage has been a FINRA member since 2000, while Vision Financial has been a FINRA member since 2008. According to FINRA, From September 2016 through December 2020, Vision Financial and Vision Brokerage failed to develop and implement an anti-money laundering (AML) program reasonably designed to achieve and monitor the firm's compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act and the implementing regulations thereunder.

In particular, the firms did not establish and implement policies and procedures tailored to the firms' business, which could be reasonably expected to detect and cause the reporting of suspicious activity arising from transactions and money movements in domestic and foreign-based retail accounts.

In addition, during that period, Vision Financial also accepted direct and omnibus accounts domiciled outside of the United States that had traders located primarily in China, Russia, Eastern Europe and other jurisdictions outside of the United States. Vision Brokerage similarly accepted direct accounts with foreign traders in these locations. Certain of these accounts had hundreds of traders who engaged in active trading strategies.

From August 2018 through December 2020, Vision Financial provided its customers with direct market access to an alternative trading system (ATS) and multiple exchanges but failed to establish, document, and maintain financial risk management controls and procedures reasonably designed to limit the financial and regulatory risks associated with this activity. Vision Financial's failures resulted in potentially manipulative trading occurring and orders entering the markets without being subjected to reasonably designed risk management controls.