The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) released its annual Industry Snapshot, a statistical report on the brokerage firms, registered representatives, and market activity that FINRA regulates.
This year's snapshot includes the following new additions:
- Number and size of SPAC filings;
- Customer margin debt;
- Consolidated Audit Trail, or CAT event reporting;
- American Depository Receipt activity;
- Excess net capital by firm size;
- Regulation National Market System (Reg NMS) stock trading by product type; and
- Geographic distribution of registered individuals.
Key findings include the following.
- The number of broker-dealers registered with FINRA continues to decline.
- Number of firms in 2021: 3,394
- Number of firms in 2020: 3,435
- The number of registered reps in the industry decreased.
- The number dropped by 2,074 individuals — to 612,457 registered reps in 2021 versus 617,531 in 2020.
- About half of the registered reps in the industry were dually registered.
- According to the chart provided by ThinkAdvisor, of the total number of registered reps in 2021, 304,867 were registered only with broker-dealers. The remaining 307,590 were dually registered with broker-dealers and RIAs.
- More firms left the broker-dealer industry
- The number of firms leaving the industry: 210 left in 2020 versus 150 in 2021.
- The number of firms entering the industry: 128 entered in 2021 versus 109 in 2021.
- Six states currently hold the vast majority of firms.
- Those states include New York (1,438), California (911), Florida (731), Texas (621), Illinois (606), and New Jersey (446).
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