FINRA Censures Apex Clearing and Fines Firm $250,000 Over Margin Supervision

By Mark J. Astarita, Esq.

This commentary is general information, not legal advice. Rules and their interpretations change; check the current rules or consult counsel before acting on anything here.

FINRA accepted a Letter of Acceptance, Waiver, and Consent (AWC) with Apex Clearing Corporation (CRD No. 13071) on November 3, 2026, in matter No. 2021069321001. Under the AWC, Apex consented to findings without admitting or denying them—the standard AWC posture—and agreed to a censure and a $250,000 fine.

The AWC states that from January 2020 through January 2023, Apex lacked a supervisory system reasonably designed to aggregate all of a retail customer’s margin account positions when monitoring the firm’s compliance with margin requirements for each customer. Apex clears and carries customer accounts for introducing broker-dealers on a fully disclosed basis. FINRA found that the firm monitored each margin account individually and, until January 2023, considered each account of a single customer separately rather than combining that customer’s margin positions across accounts introduced through the same introducing firm. By failing to establish a supervisory system reasonably designed to achieve compliance with Regulation T and FINRA Rule 4210, Apex violated FINRA Rules 3110 and 2010.

The matter originated from a FINRA cycle examination. The AWC notes that account-by-account monitoring impaired Apex’s ability to track aggregate activity, and that a restriction on one margin account did not automatically carry over to a customer’s other margin accounts. Following the exam, Apex began remediation in mid-2022 by blocking customers from opening multiple margin accounts and, by January 2023, was tracking multiple accounts and aggregating margin positions and transactions for margin purposes.

Mark J. Astarita

Sallah Astarita & Cox, LLC
(212) 509-6544
seclaw.com