Synchronized Clocks Aid Financial Sector with Regulatory Compliance

Recent timekeeping mandates in the financial sector require highly accurate and traceable network time for confirming transaction occurrences and providing order audit trails.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is cracking down on requirements relating to clock accuracy, granularity, and maximum clock drift in financial trading systems. “Business clocks” used in the system to record date and time of reportable events as required by industry regulations, both the FINRA Reg. Notice 14-21 and EC Rule 613, must adhere to tightened clock accuracy. Identifying trade time-stamp inconsistencies, often related to illegal trading activities, is a key underlying goal with directives such as the SEC Consolidated Audit Trail requirements and real-time auditing by SEC systems. The new regulations pose synchronization challenges to security firms subject to stringent regulations.

Although these regulations are primarily aimed to computer network time, leveraging a Synchronized Clock System to monitor time on the network is greatly beneficial in maintaining accurate time and provides an audit trail of synchronization accuracy across systems. The reliability of your timekeeping infrastructure is a critical factor in maintaining compliance with the new regulatory requirements. Audit trails rely on log file accuracy, along with proof of time-synchronization accuracy across systems. A Synchronized Clock System ensures the integrity of your timekeeping system in providing a precise, accurate and dependable time reference. An RF Wireless Synchronized Clock System receives dependable, accurate time from a transmitter using radio frequency-hopping over 128 channels. This clock synchronization method ensures a consistent time data signal with no interference, thereby helping financial institutions comply with timekeeping requirements.

Read up on more timekeeping product applications for financial facilities here.