Required Customer Account Information

What this video covers

• The six items a member firm must maintain for every account record, and which two drop away for institutional accounts
• Why a trusted contact person must be a human age 18 or older, and why the absence of one does not block account opening if reasonable efforts were made
• Why a principal signature on the account record proves account acceptance but does not satisfy the separate, ongoing duty to supervise
• The three items a firm must make reasonable efforts to obtain before the initial transaction settles: tax identification number or Social Security number, occupation and employer, and associated-person status
• The critical timing distinction between the tax identification number (required before account opens for a U.S. person under customer identification program rules) versus occupation and associated-person status (reasonable efforts before settlement)
• The difference between an institutional account exemption (all three reasonable efforts plus two required items waived) and an unrecommended mutual fund account exemption (only the three reasonable efforts waived)
• Why a taxpayer identification number is a recordkeeping identifier, not the same as tax status assessed later for suitability profiling