{"id":708481,"date":"2026-06-01T20:07:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T20:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/708481\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T20:07:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T20:07:13","slug":"finra-snapshot-shows-b-d-consolidation-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/708481\/","title":{"rendered":"FINRA Snapshot Shows B\/D Consolidation Continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority\u2019s annual industry snapshot<\/a> provides a clear picture of continued consolidation among broker\/dealers, with an uptick in large firms as measured by employee count, even as mid-sized and smaller firms declined.<\/p>\n

According to FINRA, the number of registered representatives at firms with more than 500 of their peers rose by two percentage points to 54,984. Comparatively, registered representatives at mid-sized firms with 151 to 499 representatives fell by about one percentage point to 52,564, and those at small firms with 1 to 150 representatives fell by 0.2 percentage points to 60,329.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The large FINRA-registered firms have been gobbling up market share for five years running, even as the number of representatives has continued to increase, according to the Washington D.C.-based regulator.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe profession continues to grow, with registered representatives reaching 639,723 in 2025, a 5% increase since 2021, marking four consecutive years of growth with 40,000-45,000 people entering the industry annually,\u201d FINRA wrote in the report. \u201cAt the same time, the number of FINRA member firms declined due to ongoing concentration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related:Raymond James Recruits $2.8B Team From Commonwealth<\/a><\/p>\n

When tallying firm count, FINRA shows a steady decline from 3,394 registered firms in 2021 to 3,184 at the end of 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A handful of blockbuster acquisitions among broker\/dealers and hybrid registered investment advisors has helped drive that consolidation in recent years.<\/p>\n

The most recent was LPL Financial\u2019s acquisition of Commonwealth Financial Network last year<\/a>, which at the time was comprised of $285 billion in client assets and 3,000 financial advisors. Those Commonwealth advisors who have jumped since the acquisition have often gone to other large broker\/dealers<\/a> such as Raymond James, Kestra Financial, Arkadios Capital and Cambridge Investment Research.<\/p>\n

In 2024, LPL was also among the large acquirers in the space, with a deal for Atria Wealth<\/a>, and the year before that, independent broker\/dealer Cetera acquired Avantax<\/a> and Securian Financial Services<\/a>.<\/p>\n

FINRA\u2019s report also showed the steady trend of advisors moving from single broker\/dealer registration to being dually registered as investment advisors as well. According to the regulator, more than half of FINRA-registered representatives, or 331,802 advisors, are now dually registered, an increase from last year, and the third year in a row that dual registration is outpacing single broker\/dealer representatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cDual registration is now the predominant model for financial professionals,\u201d FINRA wrote.<\/p>\n

Related:Black Advisors Sue Edward Jones Over Racial Bias<\/a><\/p>\n

FINRA also tracks investment advisor representative growth in the report, despite those advisors being overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission and state regulators. There too, the numbers show a steady uptick, with IARs rising from about 50,000 in 2016 to 94,562 at the end of 2025.<\/p>\n

FINRA’s report also tracks trading among registered advisors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On this front, it found that U.S. stock trading hit a record in 2025. The average daily dollar volume of exchange-listed stocks was up more than a third from 2022 to $828 billion.<\/p>\n

Listed options trades also grew in 2025, with average daily transactions reaching 8.4 million, up 50% from 5.6 million in 2023, according to the report.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority\u2019s annual industry snapshot provides a clear picture of continued consolidation among broker\/dealers, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":708482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[45,49,48,133,131,132],"class_list":["post-708481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-finance","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/708482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}