.jpg)
Cowen has partnered with n-Tier, a technology company that helps institutions minimise the risks and costs of regulatory reporting, to complete a Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) go-live using n-Tier’s compliance workbench platform.
n-Tier’s platform provides Cowen with comprehensive validation of its reporting data, the ability to automatically correct pre-submission reporting deficiencies found in vendor CAT files, and the ability to efficiently manage correction and re-submission processes through the platform’s user interface.
With n-Tier’s compliance workbench platform, Cowen has implemented an efficient process for aggregating and validating CAT reports from all their external vendors and internal trading systems.
The CAT tracks orders throughout their life cycle and identifies the exchanges and broker-dealers handling them. This phase requires all broker-dealers currently reporting via the Order Audit Trail System (OATS) to begin reporting equities data to CAT.
n-Tier is helping Cowen and other market participants with CAT reporting by consolidating the underlying data used in the vendor or internally produced CAT reports, as well as matching record-for-record back to their OATS reporting.
This allows firms to proactively monitor their reporting and mitigate the risk of sending out erroneous records to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), allowing firms to manage and reduce their overall regulatory risk.
Peter Gargone, founder and CEO of n-Tier, explains: “If rejects do occur, the n-Tier platform automatically consumes those rejects and allows for the bulk repair of all fields on all records with a single action.
Gargone adds: “Firms that leverage our tool have all the research capabilities needed from one screen, cutting down on the time it takes to investigate and fix issues. This process has already saved firms a considerable amount of time and effort and we expect that to continue through the next phases of CAT.”
Commenting on the go-live, John Holmes, CEO at Cowen, says: “With the implementation of this initial phase of CAT behind us, we are confident that we will be able to actively manage the expansion of CAT reporting obligations.”
