Notice2025-17027
Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request; Extension: Rule 17a-25
Primary source
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Published
September 5, 2025
Issuing agencies
Securities and Exchange Commission
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 90 Issue 170 (Friday, September 5, 2025)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 90, Number 170 (Friday, September 5, 2025)]
[Notices]
[Pages 43014-43015]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2025-17027]
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SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
[OMB Control No. 3235-0540]
Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission for OMB
Review; Comment Request; Extension: Rule 17a-25
Upon Written Request, Copies Available From: Securities and Exchange
Commission, Office of FOIA Services, 100 F Street NE, Washington, DC
20549-2736
Notice is hereby given that, pursuant to the Paperwork Reduction
Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501 et. seq.) (``PRA''), the Securities and
Exchange Commission (``SEC'' or ``Commission'') is submitting to the
Office of Management and Budget (``OMB'') this request for extension of
the previously approved collection of information provided for in Rule
17a-25 (17 CFR 204.17a-25) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934
(15 U.S.C. 78a et seq.) (``Exchange Act'').
Paragraph (a)(1) of Rule 17a-25 requires registered broker-dealers
to electronically submit securities transaction information, including
identifiers for prime brokerage arrangements, average price accounts,
and depository institutions, in a standardized format when requested by
the Commission staff. In addition, Paragraph (c) of Rule 17a-25
requires broker-dealers to submit, and keep current, contact person
information for electronic blue sheets (``EBS'') requests. The
Commission uses the information for enforcement inquiries or
investigations and trading reconstructions, as well as for inspections
and examinations.
The Commission solicited comment on the continuing collection of
information in Rule 17a-25, as required under the PRA. A Federal
Register notice with a 60-day comment period soliciting comments on
this collection of information was published on May 21, 2025.\1\ The
Commission received a comment letter regarding the existing collection
of information, which is discussed in more detail below.\2\
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\1\ Proposed Collection; Comment Request; Extension: Rule 17a-
25, 90 FR 21814 (May 21, 2025) (``60-Day Notice'').
\2\ See letter from Howard Meyerson, Managing Director,
Financial Information Forum (``FIF'') (July 21, 2025) (``FIF
Letter'').
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The commenter stated that certain provisions of Rule 17a-25 are
duplicative of the Consolidated Audit Trail (``CAT'') rules.
Specifically, the commenter stated that EBS is ``duplicative of CAT, is
not necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the
Commission, and has no practical utility.'' \3\ The Commission
disagrees.
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\3\ See FIF Letter, at 3. In addition, FIF raised concerns
regarding CAT costs, the security of EBS, and possible revisions to
Rule 17a-25 to establish an automated request-and-response system
centralized through FINRA. See, e.g., FIF Letter at 3, 6-8. These
comments are beyond the limited scope of the PRA and the renewal
sought by the Commission herein for Rule 17a-25, but are being
actively considered by the Commission and its staff in other
contexts.
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EBS is not fully duplicative of the CAT. It differs in substance,
functionality, and utility. EBS provides access to transactional
information for certain fixed income products, like bonds, that is not
captured by the CAT, as well as trade-level information that is not
included in the CAT (e.g., branch office/registered representative
number). EBS also contains older data than the CAT. Moreover, EBS makes
it possible for regulatory users to request certain customer account
level information that is no longer required to be reported to the CAT
pursuant to exemptive relief granted by the Commission.\4\ The national
securities exchanges and national securities association (collectively,
``SROs'') that are the participants to the national market system plan
governing the CAT (the ``CAT NMS Plan'') have also recently submitted a
proposed amendment to the CAT NMS Plan that would codify and expand
this exemptive relief \5\--a step
[[Page 43015]]
that if approved, would increase regulatory reliance on requests to
broker-dealers for customer information such as through EBS.
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\4\ See Exchange Act Release No. 88393 (Mar. 17, 2020), 85 FR
16152 (Mar. 20, 2020) (providing conditional exemptive relief to
remove the obligation that the CAT collect (1) individual social
security numbers or tax payer identification numbers and (2) dates
of birth and account numbers associated with natural persons);
Exchange Act Release No. 102386 (Feb. 10, 2025), 90 FR 9642 (Feb.
14, 2025) (providing exemptive relief from the obligation to collect
names, addresses, and years of birth for U.S. natural persons).
\5\ See Exchange Act Release No. 102665 (Mar. 13, 2025), 90 FR
12845 (Mar. 19, 2025) (proposing to amend the CAT NMS Plan to codify
and expand previously-issued exemptive relief). FIF has supported
this proposal. See letter from Howard Meyerson, Managing Director,
FIF, to Commission (July 14, 2025), available at <a href="https://www.sec.gov/comments/4-698/4698-625367-1847814.pdf">https://www.sec.gov/comments/4-698/4698-625367-1847814.pdf</a>; letter from
Howard Meyerson, Managing Director, FIF, to Commission (Apr. 9,
2025), available at <a href="https://www.sec.gov/comments/4-698/4698-590975-1712522.pdf">https://www.sec.gov/comments/4-698/4698-590975-1712522.pdf</a>.
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While there is some transactional information in the CAT that can
also be requested through EBS, the way that CAT information is used by
regulators differs because EBS data and functionality supports
different types of analyses than the CAT. Because of these differences,
EBS remains a tool of great practical utility for the Commission in the
proper performance of its functions, including examinations,
enforcement inquiries, investigations, and market reconstructions.
In the 60-Day Notice, the Commission estimated for PRA purposes
that it sends approximately 10,807 electronic blue sheet requests per
year to clearing broker-dealers that in turn submit an average 213,233
responses.\6\ The Commission further estimated that each broker-dealer
that responds electronically will take 8 minutes, and each broker-
dealer that responds manually will take 1\1/2\ hours to prepare and
submit the securities trading data requested by the Commission. This
yielded an annual aggregate hour burden estimate for electronic and
manual response firms of 28,562 (213,137 x 8 / 60 = 28,418 hours) + (96
x 1.5 = 144 hours), respectively.\7\
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\6\ A single EBS request has a unique number assigned to each
request (e.g., ``0900001''). However, the number of broker-dealer
responses generated from one EBS request can range from one to
several thousand. EBS requests are sent directly to clearing firms,
as the clearing firm is the repository for trading data for
securities transactions information provided by the clearing firm
and the correspondent firms. Clearing brokers respond for themselves
and other firms they clear for. There were 426,274 responses during
the 24-month period, for an average of 213,137 annual responses.
\7\ Few respondents submit manual EBS responses. The small
percentage of respondents that submit manual responses do so by
hand, via email, spreadsheet, disk, or other electronic media. Thus,
the number of manual submissions (approximately 96 per year) has
minimal effect on the total annual burden hours.
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One commenter stated that the Commission's estimates of the
compliance burden do not reflect the actual compliance burden.\8\ The
commenter stated that the Commission did not consider EBS requests by
SROs. However, the SRO EBS rules are independent of Rule 17a-25, which
was modelled after then-existing SRO rules.\9\ Accordingly, the
Commission is not including EBS requests sent by SROs in the estimate
for Rule 17a-25.
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\8\ See FIF Letter at 8. The commenter stated that the
Commission provided an hours estimate but did not provide any cost
estimates. See id. Because the Commission estimated that all hourly
burdens are internal, these do not result in an annualized cost
burden to respondents for purposes of OMB for approval.
\9\ See Exchange Act Release No. 44494 (June 29, 2001), 66 FR
35836, at 35837 (July 9, 2001) (Rule 17a-25 Adopting Release).
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In addition, the commenter stated that the Commission has not
considered certain burdens in connection with its estimates, including
overhead needed to be in a position to respond to EBS requests in a
timely manner, data storage and maintenance costs, security costs
related to protecting personalized identifiable information (``PII''),
personnel costs related to the management of the data, and processing
costs.\10\
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\10\ See FIF Letter at 8.
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However, the vast majority of the information required in Rule 17a-
25 involves collections of information that broker-dealers already
maintain in compliance with existing regulations, and the rules of the
SROs (the registered securities exchanges and FINRA) currently require
broker-dealers to have adequate systems and procedures to submit the
EBS transaction reports. Further, broker-dealers already maintain all
of the information required for EBS reports pursuant to Exchange Act
Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4. Therefore, to the extent broker-dealers incur
burdens or costs related to data creation, storage, maintenance,
management, security, and processing, such costs are either usual and
customary, or are already accounted for by other collections of
information.\11\
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\11\ See Records to be made by certain exchange members, brokers
and dealers (OMB Control No. 3235-0033) and Records to be preserved
by certain brokers and dealers (OMB control number 3235-0279).
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The commenter also stated that the Commission's estimate of eight
minutes as an average response time for EBS requests is ``well below''
the actual average response time required for a broker-dealer to
respond to these requests.\12\ The commenter further stated that
broker-dealers that have acquired other broker-dealers ``often must''
incur additional costs when responding to requests when data is stored
in multiple systems.\13\ The commenter did not provide an estimate of
the average response time for EBS requests.
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\12\ See FIF Letter at 8.
\13\ See FIF Letter at 9.
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In response, the Commission acknowledges that, in some cases, there
may be additional time associated with the interpretation of the
request, collection of responsive information (including across
multiple systems), and review of the response. Therefore, the
Commission is increasing its estimate of the response time for
electronic responses by 25%, for an average response time of 10
minutes. This yields an annual aggregate hour burden estimate for
electronic and manual response firms of 35,667 (213,137 x 10 / 60 =
35,523 hours) + (96 x 1.5 = 144 hours), respectively.
An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required
to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a
currently valid OMB Control Number.
Written comments are invited on: (a) whether this proposed
collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of
the functions of the SEC, including whether the information will have
practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the SEC's estimate of the burden
imposed by the proposed collection of information, including the
validity of the methodology and the assumptions used; (c) ways to
enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be
collected; and (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of
information on respondents, including through the use of automated,
electronic collection techniques or other forms of information
technology.
The public may view and comment on this information collection
request at: <a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewICR?ref_nbr=202504-3235-024">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewICR?ref_nbr=202504-3235-024</a> or email comment to
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#1b56594335545659355452495a35485e58447f7e687044747d7d72787e695b747679357e746b357c746d"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="561b140e78191b1478191f041778051315093233253d093930303f35332416393b347833392678313920">[email protected]</span></a> within 30 days of the day
after publication of this notice, by October 6, 2025.
Dated: September 3, 2025.
Sherry R. Haywood,
Assistant Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2025-17027 Filed 9-4-25; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 8011-01-P
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