The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is delaying the implementation of rules requiring large mutual funds to submit monthly details of their portfolio holdings to the Commission while it improves the security of its EDGAR filing system which was hacked in 2016.
For the first nine months after the original Form N-PORT compliance date of 1 June, 2018, larger fund groups will maintain the required information in their records and make it available to the Commission upon request instead. Smaller fund groups will have to comply with the requirements one year after larger fund groups begin filing the form.
The delay as the Commission carries out an assessment of it cybersecurity risk profile was announced by Chairman Jay Clayton (pictured), in May 2017.
“Today’s Commission action is a prudent step as we continue our work to uplift EDGAR and other systems and assess our data needs, including how and when we collect market-sensitive data,” says Clayton. “An important component of today’s release is the requirement that larger fund groups maintain – and Commission staff have access to – the information required on Form N-PORT.”
The Commission adopted Form N-PORT to require registered investment companies to report enhanced information about their monthly portfolio holdings in a structured data format. Filing of Form N-PORT through the EDGAR system will begin in April 2019 for larger fund groups and in April 2020 for smaller fund groups. To ensure that investors do not lose access to important information, the Commission is requiring funds to continue filing public reports on existing Form N-Q until they begin filing reports on Form N-PORT using EDGAR.
