FINRA issued their 2019 Report on Examination Findings and Observations ahead of prior years’ reports.

FINRA Changes Approach in Communicating Exam Results 

This most recent report, issued on October 16, 2019, starts by highlighting a recently implemented distinction on their part as to how they communicate exam results to firms. That is, FINRA stated that they now report “findings,” which are violations of the rules, and “observations” (f/k/a “recommendations”), which are “suggestions to [the] … firm about how it could improve its control environment in order to address perceived weaknesses that elevate risk, but do not typically rise to the level of a rule violation or cannot be tied to an existing rule.”
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