NYLife Securities Censured and Fined for Misconduct
NYLife Securities submitted a Letter of Acceptance, Waiver and Consent (AWC) to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) in which they allegedly failed to enforce its written supervisory procedures in violation of NASD Rule 3010(b) and FINRA Rule 3110(b), and consequently FINRA Rule 2010. NYLife Securities is a retail broker-dealer that has been a member of FINRA since 1970. According to the findings, NYLife failed to enforce it procedures for supervising the suitability of sales of higher risk mutual funds that were subject to volatility. According to those procedures, the firms representatives were required to reallocate or change risk tolerances and investment objectives for portfolios that were over-concentrated in higher risk securities. However, FINRA alleged that the firm did not seek the customers input to adjust the risk tolerances and investment objectives to accommodate sales of higher-risk mutual funds due partly to the workload of the reviewers and their supervisor, which prevented them from reasonably investigating each alert that Respondent’s automated surveillance generated. The findings stated that the adjustments permitted numerous customers to be over-concentrated in their portfolios, sustaining losses of $1.4 million.
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