Feeling the Heat of CAT Regulatory Audits? You’re Not Alone.
Let’s face it—regulatory expectations aren’t getting any easier. If you’re into CAT compliance, you already know: FINRA and the SEC are tightening the screws. Timely and complete CAT reporting is just the beginning, firms need to have processes in place to review the data being accurate and regularly verified with Comparative Review. Auditors are going and checking across the board CAT WSPs being followed and documented. But here’s the real question: Is your team truly ready for a regulatory audit or inquiry? Because the risks of falling short of operational expectations, reputational damage are very real. And yet, many firms are still relying on siloed systems, manual processes, dated or no regulatory tools and this leads to last-minute scrambles to meet audit demands. Is that really sustainable?
In this challenging environment, more and more firms are turning to technology for taking things under control. The Regulatory Surveillance & Management System (RSMS) by Capital Market Solutions has emerged as a best class solution that auditors advising firms to utilize to fulfill WSPs. RSMS empowering compliance teams to meet audit demands efficiently, mitigate risks, and streamline their regulatory response processes. Let’s navigate the CAT compliance challenges and how RSMS helps.
Firms are often stuck in a reactive compliance posture, scrambling to assemble data and “explain the past” rather than proactively demonstrating control and transparency.
A Regulatory Surveillance & Management System (RSMS) is a specialized, cloud-based platform that centralizes, and tracks the entire lifecycle of regulatory submissions, specifically for standards like CAT. It acts as the connective tissue between CAT reporting requirements and compliance teams, ensuring data is accurate, auditable, and always ready for review.
RSMS not only manages the routine process of FINRA CAT reporting but also brings much-needed structure to error reconciliation, exception management, and regulator interactions.
RSMS delivers a suite of integrated capabilities that tackle each of the above challenges head-on:
RSMS Vault is packed with features that set a new standard for secure, auditable, and manageable data retention:
In effect, RSMS transforms compliance from a reactive firefighting task to a proactive business asset—protecting the firm while building regulator trust.
Imagine a scenario: a firm receives an unscheduled inquiry from FINRA about CAT submission irregularities from the previous quarter.
The difference is dramatic: not just in time saved, but in demonstrating a culture of proactive oversight and readiness to regulators.
It leverages cutting-edge data mining and intelligent reconciliation technology to ensure CAT event data perfectly aligns with source transactions from systems such as OMS and EMS. This robust module performs thorough, comparative reviews of CAT submissions alongside internal firm records, highlighting any discrepancies, inaccurate, or incomplete reporting. CAT – Recon operates daily, irrespective of error rate percentage, meticulously identifying gaps in critical fields like Event Timestamp, FDID, and Account Holder Type. For compliance teams, this means a proactive safeguard against inconsistencies and a foundation for consistent, defensible CAT reporting, delivering seamless adherence and unwavering regulatory confidence.
It leverages cutting-edge data mining and intelligent reconciliation technology to ensure CAT event data perfectly aligns with source transactions from systems such as OMS and EMS. This robust module performs thorough, comparative reviews of CAT submissions alongside internal firm records, highlighting any discrepancies, inaccurate, or incomplete reporting. CAT – Recon operates daily, irrespective of error rate percentage, meticulously identifying gaps in critical fields like Event Timestamp, FDID, and Account Holder Type. For compliance teams, this means a proactive safeguard against inconsistencies and a foundation for consistent, defensible CAT reporting, delivering seamless adherence and unwavering regulatory confidence.
It is an integral module of RSMS, bringing advanced analytics directly to the compliance professional’s fingertips, proactively surfacing insights long before a FINRA audit or inquiry is initiated. CATalyst systematically extracts and consolidates data from submitted CAT ROEs across all sources and asset classes, allowing users to conduct comprehensive surveillance and identify anomalies or outliers daily. With its highly flexible interface, compliance experts can slice, dice, and drill into specific data elements, uncovering risks and patterns with precision. The ability to seamlessly export selected datasets directly from the RSMS portal further empowers internal investigations and audit preparations, putting firms ahead of regulatory scrutiny at every step.
To stay ahead in an era of heightened regulatory expectations, firms need a solution that goes far beyond basic CAT reporting. RSMS delivers precisely that, arming compliance teams with the intelligence and transparency required to master audit readiness and regulatory inquiry. By centralizing surveillance, driving error reconciliation, and enabling rapid, organized response to FINRA or SEC requests, RSMS transforms compliance from a reactive burden into a proactive advantage.
Now is the time to future-proof your regulatory operations and give your firm the edge in both efficiency and confidence. Empower your team to not just meet, but exceed regulatory expectations—choose RSMS for superior oversight and peace of mind.