On January 9, the SEC announced its examination priorities for 2014, which cover a wide range of issues at financial institutions, including investment advisers and investment companies, broker-dealers, clearing agencies, exchanges and other self-regulatory organizations, hedge funds, private equity funds and transfer agents.

The market-wide priorities include fraud detection and prevention, corporate governance and enterprise risk management, technology controls, issues posed by the convergence of broker-dealer and investment adviser businesses and by new rules and regulations, and retirement investments and rollovers.  Program Priorities.