Merrill Lynch fined $2.8 million by FINRA for reporting tech errors

System errors saw Merrill Lynch report millions of inaccurate transactions to US regulator.

The Financial Industry Regualtory Authority (FINRA) has fined Bank of America Merrill Lynch $2.8 million for violating systematic reporting, record keeping and supervisory rules.

An investigation by FINRA found that Merrill Lynch, which Bank of America acquired in 2009, had reported millions of trades to the reporting facility that were inaccurate or did not need to be reported at all.

Over the course of five years, FINRA said Merrill Lynch had encountered several system errors that caused the reporting failures.

It also said the division of Bank of America had failed to record special handling instructions correct receipts and route timestamps on order tickets which led to million of records being inaccurate.  

Thomas Gira, head of market regulation at FINRA, explained the accuracy of information is a critical component of market integrity.

“The failure to report accurate audit trail information adversely affects not only FINRA, but other market participants and the investing public,” he added.

Merrill lynch neither admitted nor denied the charges, but agreed with the investigation’s findings. 

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