Talking concerning the standing of the Consolidated Audit Path’s transaction database on Thursday, Monetary Trade Regulatory Authority CEO Robert Cook dinner mentioned, “Mission completed.” Cook dinner additionally signaled that paring again the quantity of knowledge collected by way of CAT could also be warranted.

“If you happen to return and take into consideration what was the aim of CAT — popping out of the flash crash, the SEC wasn’t ready to reconstruct what occurred; it didn’t have the information obtainable,” Cook dinner mentioned throughout feedback on the Securities Merchants Affiliation’s annual Market Construction convention, held in Washington.

“Quick ahead to right now, we’ve got an built-in consolidated audit path that enables for surveillance of all listed merchandise in [over the counter] buying and selling; it permits for market reconstruction, it permits for coverage informing/coverage evaluation,” Cook dinner defined.

CAT is the SEC-mandated central repository of trades, quotes and orders for all U.S. exchange-listed and over-the-counter fairness securities and U.S. exchange-listed choices contracts throughout all U.S. markets and buying and selling venues. Buyers’ private identifiable info, or PII, turned obtainable by way of the CAT on March 17.

Whereas there are “tons of issues that individuals increase with CAT,” Cook dinner defined, “general, the transactional database has been very profitable in assembly these objectives.”

As for “official” privateness issues associated to CAT, Cook dinner mentioned, it’s “by no means to late to do the correct factor. Simply because we’re there now doesn’t imply we are able to’t say, ‘Possibly we went too far. Let’s return and gather much less knowledge and actually shrink the footprint of that.’”

CAT Funding

By way of  CAT funding, FINRA was “upset that the SEC permitted the funding mannequin that got here out,” Cook dinner defined. “We had commented once more it a number of occasions; we don’t suppose it’s the suitable allocation of the prices of CAT.”