Cetera fined $125,000 over privacy issues

Finra also censured the firm in connection with privacy breaches that occurred during transfers of new clients.

Cetera Advisor Networks will pay a $125,000 fine and accept a censure from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. in connection with customer privacy breaches.

In a letter of acceptance, waiver and consent, Finra said that between October 2019 and July 2020, Cetera used a third-party vendor to help with brokers transitioning to the firm and failed to take steps to verify whether the reps or their former broker-dealers had notified customers about the disclosure of their nonpublic personal information to the vendor.

In all, 26 recruited representatives took nonpublic personal customer information from their broker-dealers and disclosed it to the vendor. By doing this, Finra said, Cetera caused the other broker-dealers to violate Regulation S-P.

[More: Cetera to buy Voya Financial Advisors’ broker-dealer reps and assets]