FINRA Orders StoneX to Pay a Fine of $60,000 for Compliance Failures

​The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has filed and settled enforcement actions against StoneX, a broker-dealer that has been a FINRA member since March 1999.

FINRA found that during the third quarter of 2017 and the second quarter of 2018 StoneX operated a trading desk where traders were required to handle some order flow manually, outside of automated systems, resulting in delays in the handling of certain OTC orders.

As a result, StoneX failed to immediately display, route, execute or cancel 27 out of 35 (77 percent) sampled exceptions of customer limit orders. 14 of these orders were cancelled/replaced orders.

In addition, from July 2017 through June 2018, StoneX failed to reasonably supervise for cancel/replace orders not displayed immediately. And from July 2017 through June 2018, the company failed to establish written procedures reasonably designed to achieve compliance with FINRA Rule 6460.

StoneX has consented to a censure and a fine of $60,000. And FINRA mentioned that it will not bring any future actions against the respondent alleging violations based on the same factual findings.

Earlier this year, the financial watchdog has charged the institutional broker-dealer - Santander Investment Securities Inc. (SIS) with deficient research reports, requiring the firm to pay a penalty of $175,000.