The roles of the SEC, NASAA, and MSRB in the securities regulatory framework.
Series 6 candidates need more than a FINRA-only view of the industry. This section explains the other regulators that appear in questions and how their responsibilities differ. The exam usually does not reward memorizing organizational trivia. It rewards matching the regulator to the activity being supervised.
That means you should study regulators by function. The SEC sits at the federal securities-law level, NASAA represents state securities regulators, and the MSRB writes rules for the municipal securities market. Once you know that structure, it becomes easier to reject answer choices that name the wrong authority even when the wording sounds official.
| Regulator | Best remembered as… |
|---|---|
| SEC | The primary federal securities regulator |
| NASAA | The state-regulator network and state-law angle |
| MSRB | The rulemaker for municipal securities activity |
This section is a matching exercise. If you can place each regulator in the right lane, you can answer faster and with more confidence.