NYSE Group Inc and the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) won approval from US brokerages to form a single regulator and cut compliance costs for the securities industry, overcoming opposition from a group of small firms.
NASD members voted 64 percent in favor of approving bylaw changes needed to combine the brokerage industry's main watchdog with the NYSE's regulatory arm, NASD said in a statement yesterday.
Almost 83 percent of the 5,058 eligible members voted, it said.
"The securities industry has embraced replacing an outdated regulatory structure with one that better serves firms and investors in a fast-changing marketplace," NASD chairman Mary Schapiro said in the statement.
The merger was backed by Wall Street's biggest firms, who cited the cost and redundancy of complying with rules enforced by two industry watchdogs. The vote permits NASD to make a one-time US$35,000 payment to each member firm in anticipation of cost savings.
NYSE and the NASD said when they announced the agreement on Nov. 28 that they wanted to create a new organization to oversee all securities brokers and dealers doing business with the public in the US. The venture would begin operating in the second quarter of next year and reduce costs by "millions [of dollars] per year," the groups said at that time.
The vote's results may be challenged by the Financial Industry Association, a group of smaller brokerages that had tried to rally opposition, John Busacca, one of its founders, said earlier this month.
"We will consider all options and we will do what's best for the members as an organization," co-founder Richard Goble said in an interview yesterday. "I don't believe those votes are accurate. If the results hold up, apparently the fear of regulatory retaliation and the $35,000 payment was too much to overcome."
Regulators, including US Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox, said the change would improve policing of financial markets.
"It's a great step forward for efficient and effective regulation," SEC commissioner Paul Atkins said in an interview Jan. 19.
"The more duplication you have out there, it makes life more complicated and more costly," Atkins added.
Though the merger is subject to approval by the SEC, Cox has endorsed the plan. It would make the country's self-regulatory system "more efficient and more robust," he said at a November press conference.
NASD executives crisscrossed the country after announcing the proposal, giving speeches and holding town-hall style meetings to build support among members.
Schapiro would become Wall Street's top non-governmental watchdog through the merger, serving as the organization's chief executive officer.
Schapiro said she became more attuned to the concerns of smaller brokerages during the election.
"The comments we heard while traveling the country weren't lost on deaf ears," she said in an interview yesterday. In the future, "we will get the job done in a way that's less costly and burdensome."
The merged organization will comprise NASD's 2,400 workers and about 470 employees from the NYSE's member regulation, arbitration and enforcement teams. Its name hasn't been decided.
Other brokerage groups have backed the plan, including the National Association of Independent Broker-Dealers, which represents more than 350 brokerages, as well as the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the main lobbying group for Wall Street's biggest brokerages.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS