SEC to Consider Revised Funding Model for CAT

In an open meeting on Wednesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission plans to consider whether to adopt a proposed amendment to the National Market System Plan governing the Consolidated Audit Trail to implement a revised funding model for CAT.

According to a notice on the SEC’s website, the agency will also consider whether to ”establish a fee schedule for CAT fees for the self-regulatory organizations that are participants to the CAT NMS Plan in accordance with the Executed Share Model.”

CAT is the SEC-mandated central repository of trades, quotes and orders for all U.S. exchange-listed and over-the-counter equity securities and U.S. exchange-listed options contracts across all U.S. markets and trading venues.

As of March 17, investors’ personal identifiable information, or PII, became available via the CAT.

Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association president and CEO Ken Bentsen said in January that letting such PII become available amounted to the SEC’s failure to implement changes to protect investor privacy.

In a letter to the SEC Tuesday, SIFMA Asset Management Group, like other commenters, said that it “is very concerned about the ever-escalating CAT costs and the lack of any mechanism to help control such costs. Regardless of who ultimately pays for CAT funding, the costs will have an economic impact on trading. Asset managers, therefore, share the significant concerns about the lack of an independent cost review mechanism for the CAT budget, which would help ensure that future CAT fees are fair and reasonable.”