Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ("FRB") Chair Janet Yellen spoke at the Citizens Budget Commission. Her speech focused on the implementation of improvements since the financial crisis in the oversight of large financial institutions in the United States. Chair Yellen distinguished between the "regulation" and "supervision" of systemically important financial institutions ("SIFIs"), and argued that both have improved since the financial crisis. With regard to "regulation," Chair Yellen cited five areas in which the FRB implemented rules to improve its oversight of financial

FINRA released a podcast summarizing the latest notices, compliance resources and news from February 2015. The podcast highlights two recent regulatory notices: (i) Notice 15-03, which requests comments on a FINRA proposal to require alternative trading systems to submit quotation information about fixed-income securities to FINRA, and (ii) Notice 15-04, which requests comments on a FINRA proposal to disseminate additional securitized products and reduce the reporting timeframe. The podcast also mentions FINRA's new video in its ongoing series titled "A Few Minutes with FINRA." This latest

FINRA filed an immediately effective proposal with the SEC to amend FINRA Rule 3110.15 ("Temporary Program to Address Underreported Form U4 Information") to extend the expiration date of the refund program under that rule. The program was originally set to expire in July 31, 2015. FINRA is proposing the extension of the program until December 1, 2015. See: FINRA Rule Proposal: SR-FINRA-2015-005. See also: FINRA Rule Calendar (available to Cabinet subscribers only).

SEC Commissioner Daniel Gallagher issued a statement expressing his concern about the number and aggregate impact of regulations that have been imposed on U.S. financial services firms since the enactment of Dodd-Frank. According to Commissioner Gallagher, a cost-analysis was not performed for many of these regulations and in cases where an analysis was performed, it proved inadequate. He stated that no regulator has considered the overall regulatory burden on financial services firms when determining whether to impose additional costly regulations. In his statement, Commissioner Gallagher

The SEC extended its own deadline to act on a proposed tick size pilot program. The SEC cited the need for additional time to consider, and take action, given public comments received. The SEC received 74 comment letters as of February 26, 2015. The details of the pilot program include: a one-year pilot period; and three test groups and one Control Group (with 400 pilot securities in each group for a total of 1600 pilot securities): Control Group pilot securities will be quoted and traded at any price increment that is currently permitted; Test Group One pilot securities will be quoted in $0