The number of dually registered representatives with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has exceeded the number of individuals registered solely with broker/dealers for the first time, according to the 2022 FINRA Industry Snapshot, which examined 2021 data.
The number of b/d-only reps has outpaced dually registered reps—those registered with a b/d and registered investment advisor—since 2012, though the gap has been closing during the past decade.
But in 2021, there were 307,590 dually registered reps, compared with 304,867 b/d-only reps; in 2020, those numbers were 317,936 and 299,613, respectively.
The total number of FINRA-registered individuals dipped slightly in 2021 compared with the prior year, continuing a multiyear streak of steady but minuscule declines. The number of registered individuals fell from 617,531 in 2020 to 612,457 in 2021.
Eighty-one percent of these individuals were registered at large firms, those with 500 or more reps, though that percentage has remained steady since 2017.
Both the number of representatives entering and leaving the industry increased from 2020, though the total percentage of arrivals and departures compared with the industry as a whole remained consistent with previous years. In 2021, 43,896 individuals left the industry, compared with 38,144 from the year before. A total of 38,822 entered the industry, up from 31,031 in 2020. This turnover primarily took place at large firms, according to the snapshot.
The regulator began tracking additional data this year, including the number and size of SPAC filings, CAT event reporting, customer margin debt and excess net capital by firm size, among other categories.