e9-15665

[Federal Register: July 2, 2009 (Volume 74, Number 126)]

[Proposed Rules]

[Page 31642-31647]

From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

[DOCID:fr02jy09-11]

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COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING COMMISSION

17 CFR Part 16

RIN 3038-AC63

Account Ownership and Control Report

AGENCY: Commodity Futures Trading Commission (``Commission'').

ACTION: Advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (``Advanced Notice'')

and request for public comment.

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SUMMARY: The Commission has determined to collect certain ownership,

control, and related information for all trading accounts active on

U.S. futures exchanges. The information collected will enhance market

transparency, leverage the Commission's existing surveillance systems,

and foster synergies between its market surveillance, trade practice,

enforcement, and economic research programs. The Commission will

collect relevant data via an account ``Ownership and Control Report''

(``OCR'') submitted periodically by all reporting entities.\1\

Tentatively, the OCR will include a trading account number; the names

and addresses of the account's owners and controllers; the last four

digits of the owners' and controllers' social security or tax ID

numbers; the special account number, if one has been assigned; an

indication of whether the account is a reportable account pursuant to

large trader thresholds set forth under Part 18 of the Commission's

regulations; and other relevant information.\2\ This Advanced

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Notice seeks public comment on that tentative content, as well as on

other features of the OCR's planned design. Public comments collected

in response to this Advanced Notice will be used in developing a

proposed rule at a later date.

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\1\ The Commission anticipates that most reporting entities will

be designated contract markets, but they could be any registered

entity that provides trade data to the Commission on a regular

basis.

\2\ Under the CFTC's Large Trader Record Format, special account

numbers contain two elements: (1) A reporting firm ID and (2) a

unique account number assigned by the reporting firm. Special

accounts numbers are discussed more fully in Section III(C), below.

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DATES: Comments must be received on or before August 17, 2009.

ADDRESSES: Comments should be sent to David Stawick, Secretary,

Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Three Lafayette Centre, 1155 21st

Street, NW., Washington, DC 20581. Comments may be submitted via e-mail

at secretary@cftc.gov. ``Account Ownership and Control Report'' must be

in the subject field of responses submitted via e-mail, and clearly

indicated on written submissions. Comments may also be submitted at

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leavingFR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.regulations.gov http://www.regulations.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Sebastian Pujol Schott, Special

Counsel, 202-418-5641, or Cody J. Alvarez, Attorney Advisor, 202-418-

5404, Division of Market Oversight, Commodity Futures Trading

Commission, Three Lafayette Centre, 1155 21st Street, NW., Washington,

DC 20581.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Background

A. The Ownership and Control Report Will Enhance Regulatory Oversight

in an Electronic Trading Environment

Since the late 1990s, U.S. designated contract markets (``DCMs'')

have rapidly evolved from open-outcry trading pits to global electronic

platforms. In 1999, electronic trading accounted for only 5% of volume

on all U.S. exchanges. By 2008, it was responsible for some 80% of

volume.\3\ In addition, every new exchange designated since the year

2000 has offered only electronic trading, and many contracts that were

once offered in open-outcry are now available only electronically.

While open-outcry trading remains important in specific contexts,

including options on futures, electronic platforms are now dominant in

the United States.

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\3\ Derived from volume data for what is today CBOT, CME, NYMEX,

and ICE Futures U.S. These exchanges collectively account for 99% of

the futures and options on futures trading volume on regulated

exchanges in the U.S.

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The ascendancy of electronic trading has revolutionized the

business of futures, and the Commission has worked diligently to keep

pace in every respect. The Commission, and its Division of Market

Oversight (``DMO''), have been especially vigilant in the area of

regulatory data and technology. Under all circumstances, Commission

staff must have the information necessary to conduct effective

oversight, ensure market integrity, and protect customers from fraud

and abuse. The Commission has invested heavily to modernize its

regulatory systems, and is equally committed to obtaining the raw data

necessary for effective surveillance of futures markets.

In many cases, the Commission already receives the information it

requires for effective regulation, including large trader reports for

market surveillance and exchange trade registers for trade practice

surveillance.\4\ The OCR will integrate these existing resources, and

leverage them in dynamic new ways. It will facilitate innovative trade

practice and market surveillance by DMO; bridge the gap between

individual transactions reported on exchange trade registers and

aggregate positions reported in large trader data; and allow other

Commission Offices and Divisions to better utilize regulatory data in

support of their own missions.\5\ Each of these benefits is discussed

more fully in Section III of this Advanced Notice. In addition, as

explained immediately below, the OCR will increase market transparency

and respond to new regulatory data needs in an era of electronic

trading.

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\4\ ``Trade register'' is a generic term for a comprehensive,

daily record of every trade facilitated by an exchange, whether

executed via open-outcry, electronically, or non-competitively.

Trade registers contain detailed information with respect to the

terms of a trade, the parties involved, and other data points. They

also contain trading account numbers, but no information with

respect to the owners or controllers of those accounts. In addition,

the trading account numbers in exchange trade registers often do not

correspond to account numbers reported in other Commission data

systems, including its large trader reporting system. The Commission

has recently standardized the content and format of all trade

registers submitted to it, which are now required to be FIXML Trade

Capture Reports. FIXML and the Trade Capture Report are discussed in

Section I (B), below.

\5\ Efficient integration of large trader and trade register

data will be one of the most important regulatory benefits deriving

from the OCR. At present, the Commission can sometimes link the two

data sets on a case-by-case basis, but the process is extremely

labor-intensive, requires assistance from exchange clearing members

and others, and does not lend itself to more routine, automated

surveillance and follow-up investigation. See Section III (C),

below.

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For both the Commission and exchange compliance staffs, electronic

trading has conferred a host of informational advantages, including

more detailed and accurate order histories, trade records, and audit

trails. Paradoxically, it has also challenged regulatory programs

through the growing dispersion and anonymity of market participants.

The Commission once monitored trading on regulated exchanges via on-

site surveillance of open-outcry pits. Today, that surveillance is

primarily electronic and data-driven. Indeed, as exchange trading has

shifted to electronic platforms, trade data has become the device by

which the Commission ``sees'' its regulated markets.\6\ Together with

trade registers and large trader reports, the OCR will allow the

Commission to see more clearly and completely by identifying otherwise

anonymous market participants and revealing links between apparently

unrelated trading accounts whose aggregate behavior is of regulatory

consequence.

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\6\ The Commission notes that it continues to conduct on-site

surveillance of exchange's remaining trading floors.

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The detail and depth of the regulatory data available to the

Commission is substantial, but insufficient to substitute for the

unique information once imparted by a physical presence on exchanges'

trading floors. Member brokers and locals, once clustered in compact

rings and readily identifiable to Commission staff, have given way to

large, widely dispersed pools of opaque persons trading on electronic

platforms. While case-by-case manual inquiry is possible, the

Commission has no way to identify traders and trading accounts quickly

and independently. To the contrary, what is now visible to the

Commission--trade data--instead reflects unknown individuals directing

trades on behalf of unnamed accounts. The result is a growing lack of

transparency from which even exchange compliance departments sometimes

suffer.\7\ The OCR project seeks to redress this imbalance of

information, and to realign the Commission's data resources with its

modern regulatory needs. Moreover, OCR data will also enhance

exchanges' internal regulatory efforts.

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\7\ While accounts and persons executing trades are uniquely

designated in the trade data, those designations do not reveal the

actual identities of traders or of account owners or controllers,

nor do they reveal relationships between trading accounts. Gathering

such information requires a time consuming manual effort by

Commission staff with the aid of exchanges, exchange clearing

members, and others. Exchange compliance departments must engage in

their own time consuming efforts when they require information with

respect to trading account owners, controllers, and relationships

for self-regulatory purposes.

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B. The Commission's Surveillance Systems and the Trade Capture Report

The Commission's surveillance programs include daily collection of

trade data from all U.S. DCMs or their

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regulatory service providers.\8\ The data collected is central to the

Commission's trade practice surveillance program, and of growing

importance to market surveillance and other regulatory efforts, as

explained below. Presently, market and trade practice surveillance

utilize distinct platforms--the Integrated Surveillance System

(``ISS'') for market surveillance and the Trade Surveillance System

(``TSS'') for trade practice surveillance. Broadly speaking, ISS

facilitates the storage, analysis, and mining of large trader data

while TSS does the same for trade data. The systems include a range of

tools for automated surveillance, pattern detection, ad hoc examination

of raw data, and investigation. One valuable benefit of the OCR is that

it will effectively integrate these two primary systems by linking

individual transactions reported on exchange trade registers (TSS) with

aggregate positions reported in large trader data (ISS). TSS and ISS

are described more fully in Section III, below.

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\8\ At present, there are 14 DCMs with listed contracts.

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While ISS is a long-standing system, TSS and the data streams that

support it are newer. The Commission has invested significant resources

to develop TSS, adopting a comprehensive new platform better suited for

monitoring electronic trading than TSS's predecessor. One important

component of TSS is the Trade Capture Report, a new data standard

governing the trade registers submitted daily to the Commission by all

DCMs. The Trade Capture Report was developed through a collaborative

effort between the Commission, DCMs, and others, under the auspices of

the Joint Compliance Committee.\9\ Design of the Trade Capture Report

was formally completed in August of 2008.

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\9\ The Joint Compliance Committee (``JCC'') is an information

sharing organization whose members include compliance officials from

all U.S. DCMs. Commission staff representing DMO's Market Compliance

Section also participates in JCC meetings. In May of 2007, at the

Commission's request, the JCC created the Trade Surveillance Data

Subcommittee (``TSDS'') to improve the manner in which trade data

was submitted to the Commission. The TSDS determined to pursue the

Trade Capture Report.

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Briefly stated, the Trade Capture Report is an electronic file that

employs the Financial Information eXchange Markup Language (``FIXML'')

to uniformly tag or designate trade information provided to the

Commission. Exchanges transmit their Trade Capture Reports daily via

Secure File Transfer Protocol (``SFTP''). All information received is

processed overnight by TSS and available to Commission staff early the

following morning.\10\ Trade Capture Reports contain trade and related

order data for every matched trade facilitated by an exchange, whether

executed via open-outcry, electronically, or non-competitively.\11\

Among the data included in the Trade Capture Report are trade date,

product, contract month, trade time, price, quantity, trade type (e.g.,

open outcry outright future, electronic outright option, give-up,

spread, block, etc.), executing broker, clearing member, opposite

broker and clearing member, customer type indicator, trading account

numbers, and numerous other data points. Additional information is also

required for options on futures, including put/call indicators and

strike price, as well as for give-ups, spreads, and other special trade

types. Noticeably absent from Trade Capture Report data, however, is

any account ownership or control information.

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\10\ As noted above, the Commission already receives trade

registers from all DCMs, and has developed a new trade register

format called the Trade Capture Report. DCMs are currently

transitioning to the Trade Capture Report, a process which the

Commission expects to be completed by the end of 2009.

\11\ E.g., block trades.

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The Trade Capture Report is central to the OCR project. As noted

above, the Trade Capture Report provides the trading account numbers

for both sides of a reported trade; the OCR, in turn, will provide

biographical data for those account numbers. The elements of an OCR are

set forth below.

II. Ownership and Control Report Outline

The OCR will serve as an ownership, control, and relationship

directory for every trading account number reported to the Commission

through exchanges' Trade Capture Reports. The data points contemplated

for the OCR have been specifically selected to achieve four Commission

objectives. These include: (1) Identifying with certainty all accounts

that are under common ownership or control at a single exchange; (2)

identifying with certainty all accounts that are under common ownership

or control at multiple exchanges; (3) identifying all trading accounts

whose owners or controllers are also included in the Commission's large

trader reporting program (including Forms 40 and 102); and (4)

identifying the entities to which the Commission should have recourse

if additional information is required, including the trading account's

executing firm and clearing firm, and the name(s) of the firm(s)

providing OCR information for the trading account.

A. Specific Data Points Required by the Ownership and Control Report

To ensure that the objectives outlined above are achieved, the

Commission believes the OCR should include the following information:

--The trading account number, as reported in the Trade Capture Report

(see TCR tags 448 and 452, Party Role 24);

--Name and address of the trading account's owner(s);

--Date on which the trading account was assigned to its current

owner(s);

--Name and address of the trading account's controller(s);

--Date on which the trading account was assigned to its current

controller(s);

--The account controller or controllers' Commodity Trading Advisor

number(s), if applicable;

--Special account number, if one has been assigned;

--Indication of whether the trading account is a reportable account;

--Indication of whether the trading account is a firm omnibus account,

and if so, the name of the firm;

--Name of the executing firm for the trading account, and its unique

identifier as reported in the TCR (see TCR tags 448 and 452, Party Role

1);

--Name of the clearing firm for the trading account, and its unique

identifier as reported in the TCR (see TCR tags 448 and 452, Party Role

4);

--The last four digits of the Social Security number or taxpayer

identification number of the trading account's owner(s) and

controller(s);

--Name of the firm(s) providing OCR information for the trading

account;

--Name of the exchange or other entity submitting the OCR to the

Commission;

--OCR transmission date.

B. Form, Manner, and Frequency of the Ownership and Control Report

The Commission anticipates that exchanges (and possibly other

registered entities) will submit their OCRs weekly, in FIXML via SFTP.

Each exchange's first OCR submission will constitute a ``master file''

containing the required data for all trading account numbers present in

the Trade Capture Report during the previous 30 days. The master file

will establish a baseline directory. Each subsequent OCR should be a

weekly ``change file'' reporting only additions, deletions, or

amendments to the master file; if the reported change includes changes

to an account's owners or controllers, the precise date of such

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change should also be reported. The Commission understands that

exchanges may not possess all of the information contemplated for the

OCR, and that they may have to collect it from outside sources.

III. Additional Benefits Derived From the Ownership and Control Report

The OCR will facilitate important regulatory objectives in the

areas of market transparency; trade practice and market surveillance;

and enhanced enforcement and research programs. Many of the OCR's

systemic benefits have already been outlined above. It will allow the

Commission to see its regulated markets more clearly and completely

than before, and help it adjust to new regulatory data needs given that

electronic platforms have become the dominant venue for regulated

futures trading in the United States. It will also enhance the

Commission's surveillance capabilities--for example, by allowing staff

to aggregate trading accounts under common ownership or control;

facilitating links between reporting firms' large trader reports and

exchanges' trade registers; and improving the Commission's detection

and deterrence capabilities with respect to specific trading practices

and market abuses.\12\ Similarly, the OCR will introduce new

efficiencies in surveillance and enforcement programs by automating

what are currently slow, labor-intensive practices. The OCR will also

allow the Commission to compensate for the loss of exchange trading

floors and the information imparted by daily physical surveillance of a

small, concentrated, and well-known universe of exchange members.

Furthermore, it will allow the Commission to maximize the benefits of

more detailed and accurate electronic trading records, and to better

oversee trading by widely dispersed individuals and accounts whose

identities and relationships otherwise cannot be ascertained quickly

and efficiently by Commission staff.

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\12\ Reporting firms include exchange clearing members, futures

commission merchants, and foreign brokers.

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In addition to broad, Commission-wide benefits, the OCR will

facilitate specific programs administered by the Commission's Division

of Enforcement (``DOE''), Office of the Chief Economist (``OCE''), and

DMO. Specific examples from each Office and Division are provided

below.

A. The Division of Enforcement

DOE investigates and prosecutes alleged violations of the Commodity

Exchange Act (``Act'') and Commission regulations. It can act against

any number of persons and entities suspected of such violations,

including individuals and firms registered with the Commission, those

who are engaged in commodity futures and option trading on designated

domestic exchanges, and those who improperly market futures and options

contracts. DOE proceedings typically begin with careful investigations

based on leads developed internally or information referred by other

Commission divisions, industry self-regulatory associations; state,

federal, and international authorities; and members of the public. At

the conclusion of any investigation, DOE may recommend that the

Commission initiate administrative proceedings or take action in

Federal court. When DOE obtains evidence that criminal violations of

the Act have occurred, it may refer the matter to the Department of

Justice for prosecution.

The OCR will be of immediate help to DOE's investigatory work,

especially work that relies on aggregating related trading accounts.

DOE investigations in the areas of intra-day manipulation and trade

practice rely on exchange trade registers/Trade Capture Reports. At

present, however, the inherent absence of ownership and control

information in Trade Capture Report data presents an obstacle when DOE

is investigating potential price manipulations or trade practice

abuses, such as front-running. As noted previously, the Trade Capture

Report does not identify account owners or controllers, nor does it

aggregate accounts under common ownership or control. Thus, any DOE

investigations that are dependent on such information face special

obstacles. DOE staff must first identify the universe of accounts

traded in a relevant period, then request and await information from

outside the Commission to identify the entity associated with the

account number, and finally aggregate all identified entities that

relate to a common owner. Only then can staff assess a particular

owner's trading activity. This time-consuming process must be re-

created every time DOE initiates an intra-day trading manipulation

investigation. The Commission believes the information contained in the

OCR will significantly reduce the time and resources expended in

determining the identities and relationships between account holders,

and thus facilitate DOE investigative activity across markets and

exchanges.

B. The Office of the Chief Economist

OCE conducts research on major policy issues facing the Commission

and assesses the economic impact of regulatory changes on the futures

markets. It also participates in the development of Commission

rulemakings, provides expert advice to other Commission offices and

divisions, and conducts special studies and evaluations as required. An

important objective of OCE is to help the Commission achieve deeper and

more sophisticated knowledge of the futures markets from the data

available to it. The OCR will advance this objective in significant

ways.

OCE is particularly interested in the OCR as a tool for enhancing

the transparency of regulated markets through the disclosure of

information on related accounts. It has a number of initiatives under

way designed to enhance the Commission's surveillance capabilities,

assist in enforcement, and improve data integrity. Related account

information derived from the OCR will help OCE to better link traders'

intraday transactions with their end-of-day positions. It will also

help OCE to calculate how different categories of traders contribute to

market wide open-interest. Building on these results, OCE will achieve

more sophisticated benefits for the Commission, including new avenues

of surveillance and enforcement tools. For example, armed with OCR/

Trade Capture Report-derived data, OCE will eventually be able to

accurately identify and categorize market participants based on their

actual trading behavior on a contract-by-contract basis, rather than on

how they self-report to the Commission (e.g. registration type,

marketing/merchandising activity, etc. on Commission Form 40).

In addition to these specific projects, ownership and control

information available via the OCR will allow OCE to perform more

complete and accurate studies and provide more targeted guidance to

other Commission staff in pursuing trade practice violations and

attempted manipulations.

C. The Division of Market Oversight

DMO's primary responsibility is to ensure that U.S. futures markets

accurately reflect the underlying forces of supply and demand for all

products traded, and that futures markets are free from fraud and

abuse. DMO monitors all futures and option markets to detect and

prevent price manipulation, abusive trading practices, and customer

harm. It is concerned with both aggregate abuses against the market

(market surveillance)

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and individual trading violations (trade practice surveillance); often,

the two are connected. DMO's surveillance efforts include routine

monitoring of markets and trades, and detailed, data-driven

investigations of both when appropriate.

DMO's market surveillance and trade practice surveillance programs

rely on ISS and TSS, respectively, as their primary technology

platforms. ISS tools and data serve to detect and prevent price

manipulation and market congestion on regulated exchanges, and to

enforce speculative position limits pursuant to section 4g of the Act.

ISS receives data from reporting firms via large trader reports filed

daily with the Commission. Large trader reports show open end-of-day

positions in futures and options that are at or above specific

reporting levels set by the Commission (``large traders''). Related

accounts are aggregated by reporting firms and given a ``special

account number'' which DMO uses to track their consolidated end of day

positions. Through ISS, DMO can account for 70 to 90% of the total open

interest in a given market.

ISS' strength lies in capturing market-wide open interest and the

large traders most responsible for that open interest. At the same

time, ISS is limited by its inability to reconstruct trading and

determine how large traders established their reportable positions.

ISS, whose data includes large traders' names but not their trading

account numbers, cannot communicate with TSS, whose data includes

trading account numbers, but no names. This simple disconnect prevents

the efficient integration of market and trade practice surveillance by

DMO. The Commission is determined to link TSS trading account numbers

with ISS large trader names though the OCR.

As previously explained, DMO's trade practice surveillance program

relies on TSS as its primary technology platform. Armed with trade

register/Trade Capture Report data, TSS aids in the detection,

analysis, and investigation of numerous abusive trading practices,

including trading ahead of customer orders, wash trading, pre-arranged

trading, money-passing, and other violations. TSS and trade register/

Trade Capture Report data also aid in the detection of market abuses,

such as banging the close, and in enforcement and research programs led

by other Commission offices and Divisions.

Like ISS, TSS possesses both strengths and limitations arising from

its raw data resources. TSS' power lies in its totality of information:

it is a detailed record of every trade executed on every U.S. futures

exchange every day. It is a robust instrument for customer protection,

direct monitoring of markets by DMO, and oversight of exchange self-

regulation. In this era of electronic trading, TSS is an unparalleled

means of ``seeing'' regulated markets directly and without filter. TSS'

limitations, however, are equally data-driven. TSS is unable to quickly

aggregate related trading accounts because its Trade Capture Report

data feeds do not contain the necessary ownership and control

information. DMO cannot efficiently police for small and medium sized

traders whose open interest does not reach reportable levels, but who

can still have deleterious effects on the markets during concentrated

periods of intra-day trading. Similarly, trade practice violations

whose discovery might depend on recognizing concerted action by related

accounts are more difficult to detect. The Commission can resolve each

of these limitations via the OCR.

While DMO's current data resources are substantial, the OCR will

elevate them to a level of sophistication and completeness that is

appropriate for the size and complexity of modern futures markets.

Integrated data--large trader reports in ISS, trade data in TSS, and

OCR ownership and control information to bind them together--will

complete the information chain for the Commission's entire surveillance

infrastructure. For the first time, DMO will be empowered to monitor

the totality of a market in an efficient, integrated, and automated

manner. No more than 24 hours after trades are executed and positions

are established, DMO will see everything from large reportable

positions to the individual trades responsible for those positions, and

down further to the individual account owners and controllers

responsible for those trades. Similarly, DMO will be empowered to

monitor markets from the bottom up, linking individual accounts under

common ownership and control, aggregating their intra-day trading, and

viewing their end-of-day positions even when they do not reach

reporting thresholds.

Equipped with the OCR and its resulting synergies, all futures

transactions will be fully transparent to DMO. DMO staff will have the

ability to perform more timely analyses of trading activity in order to

detect price distortions, manipulative conduct, trade practice abuses,

and customer harm on individual markets and across markets and

exchanges.

D. Exchange Compliance Departments

While this Advanced Notice has focused primarily on the OCR's

benefit to the Commission, OCR data may also be useful to exchange

compliance departments and other regulatory entities in the futures

industry. Many of the information challenges faced by the Commission

are shared by other industry regulatory bodies who are themselves

striving for maximum market transparency and effective regulation.

Indeed, at least one major exchange already works with an information

file that seeks to accomplish some of the same goals as the OCR. The

exchange uses a ``related accounts file'' to aggregate certain trading

accounts that are under common control, if those trading accounts are

associated with a reportable account. The information collected thus

acts as a reference file and supplement to the exchange's large trader

reporting system. The exchange's related accounts file does not

necessarily collect the same information as the Commission's

contemplated OCR. However, the Commission believes that all exchanges

can benefit from the OCR, and from the complete data set proposed in

this Advanced Notice.

IV. Request for Comments

The Commission invites public comment on any relevant aspect of the

OCR contemplated in this Advanced Notice. In addition, to help the

Commission formulate an effective and practical rule implementing the

OCR, the Commission encourages responses to the following specific

questions:

1. Is there additional information, not included in Section II(A),

that should be included in the OCR?

2. What is the lifecycle of the information required by the OCR?

Who possesses it at a root level? From what types of entities will

exchanges draw the information required by the OCR (e.g. exchange

clearing members, non-member futures commission merchants, etc.)? How

will exchanges obtain OCR information?

3. Will OCR information be more difficult to acquire for some

account types than for others? If so, what types of accounts will

present a greater challenge and why? How can the challenge be overcome?

4. The Commission expects that initially the OCR will be submitted

in FIXML via FTP. Is there a better way to electronically transmit the

OCR? Is there an existing FIXML report that may be used to transmit OCR

information? If not, is there an existing FIXML report that can be

easily modified to supply the information contained in the OCR?

5. The Commission anticipates that each exchange will initially

transmit a ``master file'' containing the required information for

every trading account

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number included in the Trade Capture Report during the previous month

or longer. The master file will effectively establish a baseline of

account information. Subsequently, each exchange would be required to

file a weekly ``change file'' reporting only changes that occurred

during the week (e.g., new accounts, deleted accounts, or changes to

accounts already in the master file). Is there a more convenient way to

provide the required information on a regular basis? Do changes occur

so frequently that a change file should be submitted daily instead of

weekly?

6. What entities will have to report raw data to exchanges so that

exchanges can compile the information required by the OCR? Since these

entities will already be in possession of OCR information, what

additional measures will they have to take to transmit it to exchanges

or prepare it for transmission? What will be the dollar and staff-hour

cost of those measures? To the extent possible, please itemize costs

related to initial implementation as well as regular reporting costs.

7. How long will it take exchanges to assemble the necessary

information and transmit the first OCR to the Commission? What will be

the dollar and staff-hour costs associated with providing the OCR? To

the extent possible, please itemize costs related to initial

implementation as well as regular reporting.

8. Will the OCR impose any disparate impact on small businesses? If

so, how can it be minimized? Please describe and estimate the number of

small entities that will be impacted.

V. Conclusion

The Commission invites comment on this Advanced Notice and the

specific questions presented above. The comments and answers received

will be used in developing a proposed rule with respect to the OCR at a

later date.

Issued in Washington, DC, on June 26, 2009 by the Commission.

David Stawick,

Secretary of the Commission.

[FR Doc. E9-15665 Filed 7-1-09; 8:45 am]

Last Updated: May 9, 2012