Effective January 1, 2023, FINRA published its revised Rule 1240 – Continuing Education (“Rule”). The Rule implemented some significant changes to FINRA’s continuing education (“CE”) requirements. This notice describes how these changes impact you and what steps you’ll need to take to maintain compliance with the new Rule.
In summary, all registered representative and registered principals must complete the FINRA Regulatory Element CE on an ANNUAL basis. The deadline to complete the CE Course is 11/30/23.
REGULATORY ELEMENT CE
Effective January 1, 2023, all registered persons are required to complete FINRA’s Regulatory Element CE by December 31st each year. This represents a change to FINRA’s previous approach to CE as it replaces the previous 3-year anniversary requirement with an annual one. Note that, to ensure compliance with the rule, member firms may set different deadlines based on their business requirements. Accordingly, ESI will require that RRs complete their Regulatory CE by November 30th, each year.
Under the new program, participants must login to FINRA’s FinPro[1] portal where they will receive content that is specifically tailored to each representative or principal registration category they hold.
Newly-registered representatives will be subject to the annual CE requirement starting with the next calendar year after the year in which they pass their initial registration exam. For example:
- An individual passes their initial registration exam in July 2023.
- They must complete their first Regulatory CE in 2024 (with a November 30, 2024 deadline).
ESI will place individuals who fail to complete their Regulatory Element by the November 30th deadline on “CE Inactive” status with the Firm. “CE Inactive” means you will not be able to submit new business and commissions will be suspended until you fulfill your CE requirement. If you remain CE Inactive for 30 calendar days, your ESI registration may be terminated.
FIRM ELEMENT CE
Also effective with the Rule, all registered persons are subject to the annual Firm Element CE requirement. This is a change in that, under the previous Rule, Firm Element CE was largely limited to affiliated persons who were client-facing and their supervisors. The new Rule expands the requirement to all registered persons, irrespective of their role. This change will generally impact home office employees who may have previously been exempted from the requirement based on their role and responsibilities. Effective with the 2023-2024 training cycle, the population of individuals subject to Firm Element CE will be expanded to comply with the new Rule.
ESI’s 2023-2024 Firm Element CE program will be made available in September 2023. The Firm will announce the program with a separate field notice.
RESOURCES
You can track your personal CE status from your FinPro account. If you haven’t already registered with FinPro, you can do so at https://finpro.finra.org/registerUser/. Existing FinPro users can log in at https://finpro.finra.org.
Additional FINRA CE resources can be found at:
Continuing Education (CE) | FINRA.org
Securities Industry CE Transformation | FINRA.org
QUESTIONS
Questions regarding this notice may be directed to ESI Licensing at esi_licensing@nationallife.com or Misty Dodson at mdodson@nationallife.com.
[1] Users must have an active FinPro account. Click hereto login or create your account.
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