In the 2025 publication, the Division covers a number of concerns and developments impacting the market and investors, including the following:

Investment Advisers

The Division will focus on adherence to fiduciary standards of conduct, effectiveness of advisers’ compliance programs, examinations of advisers to private funds. The publication also highlights never examined advisers, recently registered advisers, and advisers not recently examined.

Investment Companies

The Division will prioritize examinations of registered investment companies, including mutual funds and ETFs, due to their importance to retail investors, especially those preparing and saving for retirement.

Broker-Dealers

The Division will continue to place special attention on the following:

• Regulation Best Interest, which establishes the standard of conduct for broker-dealers at the time they recommend to a retail customer a securities transaction or investment strategy
• Form CRS, which requires SEC-registered investment advisers and SEC-registered broker-dealers to provide retail investors with a brief customer or client relationship summary that provides information about the firm
• Broker-Dealer Financial Responsibility Rules, which enforce broker-dealer compliance with the Net Capital Rule and the Customer Protection Rule and related internal processes, procedures and controls
• Broker-Dealer Trading-Related Practices and Services, which enforce broker-dealer compliance with Regulation SHO

Self-Regulatory Organizations

The Division will continue to assess whether national securities exchanges are meeting their obligations to enforce compliance with the following self-regulatory organizations:

• National Securities Exchanges, which enforce compliance with self-regulatory organization rules and the federal securities laws
• Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which writes and enforces rules, examines firms for compliance and educates investors
• Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, which regulates the activities of broker-dealers that buy, sell, and underwrite municipal securities and municipal advisors

Clearing Agencies

Under Title VIII of the Dodd-Frank Act, the SEC is required to examine, at least once annually, each clearing agency designated as systemically important and for which the SEC serves as the supervisory agency. The Division will focus on clearing agencies’ core risks, processes, and controls and will cover the specific areas required by statute, including the nature of clearing agencies’ operations and assessment of financial and operational risk.

Other Market Participants

The Division will assess whether municipal advisors have met their fiduciary duty obligation to clients when providing advice regarding the pricing, method of sale, and framework of municipal securities. The publication also will continue to review transfer agents, security-based swap dealers (SBSDs), security-based swap execution facilities (SBSEFs), and funding portals.

Risk Areas Impacting Various Market Participants

The Division will also focus on the following risk areas:

• information security and operational resiliency
• crypto assets and emerging financial technology
• regulation systems compliance and integrity
• anti-money laundering

The priorities released in this publication are not comprehensive and do not represent all of the areas the Division focused on in its examinations, risk alerts, and outreach. The priorities are driven by the Division’s examinations, but the range of any examination is decided through a risk-based approach that includes assessment of an entity’s history, operations, services, products offered, and other risk factors.

The Division welcomes public inquiries and comments on the 2025 Examination Priorities. For more details on the 2024 Examination Priorities, including instruction on how to submit feedback, visit the SEC’s Division’s webpage.

Sources:

SEC Division of Examinations Announces 2025 Priorities (sec.gov)

Examinations 2025 Priorities (sec.gov)