While the regulator has already pledged to review and update its rules — according to a transcript of his remarks provided by FINRA, Cook said Tuesday that it has now identified a couple of specific targets for this work. Those are rules on capital formation and rules around modern workplaces practices, including how firms communicate internally, how they interact with clients and how firm supervision works.

The SRO will issue a notice on that initiative soon, he noted.

On compliance, Cook said that FINRA is looking at how to provide industry firms with insight into industry trends or emerging risks that could be useful to firms in detecting and preventing these kinds of risks. 

At the same time, it’s seeking to identify sources of needless compliance cost from its supervisory work, such as unnecessary information demands and duplicative data requests.

Reducing these kinds of frictions represents an “opportunity” for the SRO to ease regulatory burdens, he suggested. 

Finally, Cook said that it’s working on new ways to help industry firms combat fraud and cyber risks — including the development of a capability for industry firms to report information on these kinds of issues to the regulator, which can then share that insight across the industry to help guard against emerging threats. 

Some of this work will require approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), he noted.