About a-team Marketing Services
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry

A-Team Insight Blogs

S3 Offers SEC CAT Solution Ahead of April Reporting Deadline

Subscribe to our newsletter

As reporting to the SEC Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) fast approaches, with large industry participants and small industry participants reporting to the Order Audit Trail System (OATS) due to submit files on April 20, 2020, vendors are finalising solutions to support firms subject to the regulation.

Among them is S3, a provider of regulatory reporting technology – including a specialism in SEC rules 605 and 606 covering disclosure of order execution and order routing information, trade surveillance, and post-trade analytics. The company has built on its reporting experience to offer a managed service solution for the CAT and is initially working with a major exchange (that it cannot currently name) to provide a service for its hosted brokers. It is also working with its own broker clients and talking to others about provision of the CAT service, which validates exchange files, submits required data to the CAT, and handles any data problems with individual brokers.

Mark Davies, CEO at S3, says the company’s CAT solution is a natural extension of its reporting capabilities, which already handle a substantial volume of data. The company has been working with the exchange’s brokers and FINRA for a few months to get data flowing and is ready for first submissions in April. Davies adds: “With new regulations coming down the pipeline, firms must be prepared to make adjustments that are often costly. S3’s CAT reporting service intends to mitigate that expense and lift much of the compliance burden off our clients.”

S3 prides itself on offering an integrated solution across SEC 605 and 606, transaction cost analysis (TCA), market surveillance, best execution and now the CAT. While its sales focus is only on the US at the moment, it could move into European markets on the strength of its expertise around SEC 605 and 606, rules that are similar to the RTS 27 and 28 reporting standards under Europe’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II).

Coming back to the CAT, Davies notes ongoing industry issues around data privacy, which without an acceptable solution, are likely to escalate ahead of the July 2022 deadline for reporting of customer and account information to the CAT.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Related content

WEBINAR

Recorded Webinar: The future of market data – Harnessing cloud and AI for market data distribution and consumption

Market data is the lifeblood of trading, but as data volumes grow and real-time demands increase, traditional approaches to distribution and consumption are being pushed to their limits. Cloud technology and AI-driven solutions are rapidly transforming how financial institutions manage, process, and extract value from market data, offering greater scalability, efficiency, and intelligence. This webinar,...

BLOG

Belfast: The Rise of a Financial Markets Technology Hub

Belfast has quietly but steadily transformed into a major hub for financial markets technology, establishing itself as a competitive location for firms specialising in market data, trading infrastructure, and financial software. Once overlooked, Belfast is now home to a thriving ecosystem of companies that provide high-end financial technology to support the world’s leading financial institutions....

EVENT

Data Management Summit London

Now in its 16th year, the Data Management Summit (DMS) in London brings together the European capital markets enterprise data management community, to explore how data strategy is evolving to drive business outcomes and speed to market in changing times.

GUIDE

AI in Capital Markets: Practical Insight for a Transforming Industry – Free Handbook

AI is no longer on the horizon – it’s embedded in the infrastructure of modern capital markets. But separating real impact from inflated promises requires a grounded, practical understanding. The AI in Capital Markets Handbook 2025 provides exactly that. Designed for data-driven professionals across the trade life-cycle, compliance, infrastructure, and strategy, this handbook goes beyond...