Webull Financial LLC has agreed to a $4.2 million FINRA settlement over weaknesses in anti-money-laundering, identity-theft prevention and best-execution controls, according to 5 November reports. It neither admitted nor denied the findings. The firm must certify the AML and identity-control fixes and appoint an independent consultant to review best execution.
The findings concern more than 120,000 accounts approved between January 2020 and September 2023 without adequate identity verification, including more than 50 applications with landscape photographs and some applicants marked deceased. FINRA also identified 473 unauthorised ACH transfers exceeding $1.5 million and an account with nearly 13,000 manipulation alerts across more than 100 stocks in about 18 months that was not investigated promptly.
The separate identity-theft programme finding covers January 2020 to February 2023. Surveillance gaps covered out-of-the-money options, shared devices or addresses and account takeovers. A check for unrelated accounts sharing a Social Security number began only in August 2021. Execution-quality reviews were deficient between at least February 2020 and May 2025, including competing venues, order-by-order categories and individual securities; non-marketable orders represented 60-70% of flow in some periods. A separate $1.6 million influencer-promotions fine in 2025 concerned a different case.
Sources: FX News Group · Finance Magnates
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