Three-Year Minimum
Broker-dealers must maintain the following securities transactions and financial records for at least three years, the first two in an easily accessible place:
- • Ledgers reflecting securities in transfer, dividends and interest received, securities borrowed and loaned, moneys borrowed and loaned, securities failed to receive and failed to deliver, all long and all short securities record differences, and repurchase and reverse repurchase agreements
- • Order memoranda
- • Purchase and sale memoranda
- • Trade confirmations
- • Options record
- • All check books, bank statements, cancelled checks, and cash reconciliations
- • All bills receivable or payable, paid or unpaid
- • All trial balances, computations of aggregate indebtedness, and net capital
- • Quarterly FOCUS reports and Annual Audited Reports
The three-year maintenance requirement also applies to the nature of a broker-dealer’s client accounts:
- • Name of beneficial owners of each cash and margin account and their disclosure preferences
- • The names of every customer that has access to a broker-dealer’s internal system for facilitating trades, daily summaries of trading in its internal system, and time-sequenced records of each transaction effected through the facility