Introducing Broker-Dealers
Introducing firms keep customer accounts but do not hold customer funds or securities or carry customer accounts themselves. Instead, they have an arrangement with a clearing, or carrying, firm to maintain custody of their customers’ accounts. Most introducing firms receive customer securities and promptly forward them to a clearing broker. Other introducing firms do not receive customer securities at all. Proprietary firms, for example, trade exclusively with their own capital. Mutual fund broker-dealers often sell on a subscrip