SEC Seeks to Halt Unfiltered Access to Exchanges

The Securities and Exchance Commission (SEC) is trying to halt a practice its chairman says is like "giving your car keys to a friend who doesn't have a license and letting him drive unaccompanied."

Sounds like a bad idea, right? Well, it's been long been status quo that broker-dealers can provide customers with "unfiltered" or "naked" access to an exchange or alternative trading system (ATS). The SEC is now proposing a rule to prohibit this practice.

The proposed rule would require brokers with market access, including those who sponsor customers' access to an exchange, to put in place risk management controls and supervisory procedures. Among other things, the procedures would help prevent erroneous orders, ensure compliance with regulatory requirements, and enforce pre-set credit or capital thresholds.

"Today's proposal would require that if a broker-dealer is going to loan his keys, he must not only remain in the car, but he must also see to it that the person driving observes the rules before the car is ever put into drive," SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro said in a statement.

Broker-dealers use a 'special pass' known as their market participant identifier (MPID) to electronically access an exchange or ATS and place an order for a customer. Broker-dealers are subject to the federal securities laws as well as the rules of the self-regulatory organizations that regulate their operation.

However, those laws and rules do not apply to a non-broker-dealer customer who a broker-dealer provides with their MPID in order to individually gain access to an exchange or ATS. Under this arrangement known as "direct market access" or "sponsored access," the customer can sometimes place an order that flows directly into the markets without first passing through the broker-dealer's systems and without being pre-screened by the broker-dealer in any manner. This type of direct market access arrangement is known as "unfiltered" access and "naked" access. A recent report estimated that naked access accounts for 38 percent of the daily volume for equities traded in the U.S. markets.