Self-Regulatory Organizations; Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc.; Notice of Filing of a Proposed Rule Change Relating to Dissemination of Information on Individual Transactions in U.S. Treasury Securities and Related Fees

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, has published in the Federal Registered proposed rule changes of FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) in connection with the dissemination of „On-the-Run Nominal Coupon“ securities transactions and the adoption of a corresponding pricing policy. The purpose of the publication is to seek feedback from the public on the proposal and whether or not the SEC should approve the proposed changes. The proposed rule change was previously announced by FINRA on November 3, 2023 (EventID 23662).
Specifically, FINRA is proposing revisions to its Rules 6710, 6750, and 7730 to provide on the auction day transaction data for „On-the-Run Nominal Coupon“ securities, including U.S. Treasury notes and bonds with fixed-rate nominal coupons. The transaction data would be generated in the post end-of-day processing via a separate Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine (TRACE) transaction file. To protect market integrity, FINRA does not aim to disclose any information of entities engaged in such transactions, but would indicate the type of counterparty involved (dealer, customer, affiliate, or alternative trading system). Moreover, FINRA proposed to apply caps on transaction sizes for various maturities to prevent disclosing detailed transaction data: $250 million for two, three, and five years securities; $150 million for seven and ten year instruments; $50 million for twenty and thirty year bonds.
FINRA also proposes the following fees in this context:
– a monthly fee of $750 per data set;
– a $2,000 fee for historical data per calendar year and per data set; and
– a one-time fee of $2,000 for the setup to receive historical TRACE data.
Reduced fees would be available for tax-exempt organizations.
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Comments on the proposal may be submitted to the SEC up to November 30, 2023.