FINRA proposed a new rule in January permitting a member firm to place a temporary delay of up to five business days on a transaction or disbursement where it suspected fraud. The version filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in August sets that delay at ten.
Regulatory Notice 26-02 was published on January 8, 2026, and its comment period closed on March 9. The filing that followed, SR-FINRA-2026-018, is the operative text now.
The new instrument is proposed Rule 2166. It would reach any natural person aged 18 and older, meaning customers regardless of age or capacity, and it turns on suspected fraud rather than suspected financial exploitation.
Both departures matter, because FINRA's existing hold rule does neither. Rule 2165 covers Specified Adults: customers aged 65 and over, or 18 and over with a mental or physical impairment that leaves them unable to protect their own interests.
Its clock, in force today, runs 15 business days initially, extendable to 25 on completion of an internal review, with one further 30-business-day extension where the matter has been reported to a state regulator or agency. Fifty-five business days is the ceiling.
The filing would replace that single extension with three, raising the ceiling to 145 business days.
None of this is law yet, but it is no longer stalled. The SEC issued formal notice of the filing on September 3, 2026, and the notice appeared in the Federal Register on September 9, with comments due on or before September 30.
That is a procedural step, not approval. FINRA's own filing page had listed the proposal as pending action for more than two weeks before the notice.
The immediate point is smaller than the proposal and more useful. A firm that wrote its escalation procedure from the January notice has a five-day delay sitting in a document describing a rule that no longer proposes five days. The comment period is why the number moved, which is what comment periods are for.
The gap between a proposal and the version actually filed is where a compliance document quietly goes out of date, and this one moved in the direction of more authority rather than less.
If this is your family
If your parent holds investments through a brokerage, a hold placed on a suspicious transfer only does its work if the firm can reach a person quickly.
Ask your parent to check who is named as the trusted contact on the account and whether that number still reaches anyone. Many were named years ago and never revisited. It is a short call to the firm, and it is the part of this machinery that depends on your family rather than on the regulator.
Sources
Regulatory Notice 26-02 - Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, January 8, 2026
SR-FINRA-2026-018, Proposed Rule Change - Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, August 2026
Rule Filing: SR-FINRA-2026-018 - Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, status listed as new as of August 24, 2026
Notice of Filing of Proposed Rule Change, Release No. 34-106275 - U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, September 3, 2026
Notice of Filing, 91 FR 57407 - Federal Register, September 9, 2026 (comments due September 30, 2026)