The Alberta Securities Commission is calling for improvements at the self-regulatory organizations, the Investment Dealers Association and the Mutual Fund Dealers Association.

In performance reports issued Friday, the ASC says its staff is satisfied overall with the performance of both the IDA and MFDA, but some areas for development were identified, mainly in the area of continued improvement of audit and review processes.

The report on the IDA notes that it conducted an oversight audit between Oct. 20 and Nov. 4, 2003 of the Prairie regional offices of the IDA’s Sales Compliance, Financial Compliance, Membership and Registration Departments. The ASC last audited these departments in October 2000. In the 2000 report, the ASC found several areas that required “significant improvement in order to ensure effective regulation of IDA members”.

This latest report found areas in which ASC staff continue to have concerns. In the sales compliance area it notes that the most significant outstanding issue is the timely issuance of examination letters. ASC staff also believe that the current benchmarks for completion of examination letters are too generous.

It is also concerned that the limited detail provided in responses to IDA examination letters. And, the ACS is also worried about the level of disclosure in response to financial compliance examination letters. On the registration side, ASC staff continue to have concerns with the review procedures.

The ASC says that the IDA has improved staffing and training on the enforcement side, resulting in an improvement in the quality of the investigations and prosecutions and in overall file management.

As for the MFDA, the ASC audited its compliance and membership departments between February 2 and February 9, 2004. Overall, it was impressed with the MFDA’s compliance department. Its main concern is that it believes it is taking the MFDA too long to issue compliance reports.

It also noted areas that require improvement on the membership side. The biggest issue is deficiencies noted during the membership application review process but not addressed by the firm on a timely basis.

Both reports, and the responses from the SROs are available on the ASC’s Web site.