The Regulatory Landscape for Financial Firm Websites
Financial services firms operate under some of the most demanding recordkeeping requirements of any industry. The Securities and Exchange Commission, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and their international counterparts have established detailed rules governing what records must be preserved, how they must be stored, and for how long they must be retained. These rules were originally designed for paper records and telegrams. Today, they apply with full force to websites.
A financial firm’s website is not a passive marketing channel. It is a regulated communication. Every claim about investment performance, every description of a financial product, every disclosure and disclaimer, every testimonial and endorsement published on a firm’s website constitutes a business record subject to regulatory scrutiny. The failure to preserve these records in a compliant manner is not merely a best-practice gap – it is a regulatory violation that can result in fines, sanctions, and reputational damage.
Despite this, many financial firms still rely on inadequate methods for preserving their website content. Screenshots saved to shared drives, PDFs generated from web pages, and CMS backups stored on internal servers remain common practices – and all of them fall short of what regulators require.
SEC Rule 17a-4: The Foundation of Financial Recordkeeping
SEC Rule 17a-4 is the cornerstone regulation governing the preservation of records by broker-dealers. Originally adopted in 1942 and amended numerous times since, the rule specifies the types of records that must be preserved, the duration of preservation, and the technical requirements for the storage medium.
What Records Must Be Preserved
Rule 17a-4, in conjunction with Rule 17a-3, requires broker-dealers to preserve a broad range of records, including all communications relating to the firm’s business. The SEC has consistently interpreted this to include website content. In its 2003 interpretive release and subsequent guidance, the Commission made clear that electronic communications – including content published on firm websites – are subject to the same preservation requirements as traditional correspondence.
This interpretation has significant implications. A financial firm’s website typically contains investment product descriptions, performance data, risk disclosures, fee schedules, biographies of investment professionals, educational content, blog posts, market commentary, and regulatory disclosures. All of this content constitutes business communications that must be preserved under Rule 17a-4.
Retention Periods
Rule 17a-4 establishes minimum retention periods that vary by record type. General business communications must be preserved for at least three years, with the first two years in an easily accessible location. Certain records – including partnership articles, corporate charters, and records related to customer complaints – must be preserved for six years or longer. Some records must be preserved for the life of the enterprise.
For website archives, the practical implication is straightforward: financial firms must maintain complete, verifiable records of their website content for at least three years, and potentially longer depending on the nature of the content.
The WORM Storage Requirement
Perhaps the most technically significant aspect of Rule 17a-4 is its requirement that records be preserved on storage media that does not permit the alteration, modification, or deletion of records once they have been written. This requirement – known as Write Once, Read Many, or WORM – was originally conceived for optical disc technology but has since been extended to electronic storage media that provide equivalent protections.
The 2003 amendments to Rule 17a-4 established specific conditions under which electronic storage media may be used. The storage system must preserve records exclusively in a non-rewritable, non-erasable format. It must verify automatically the quality and accuracy of the storage media recording process. It must serialize the original and duplicate units of storage media and time-date the information. And it must have the capacity to readily download indices and records preserved on the storage media.
These requirements are demanding, and they are not satisfied by saving files to a standard hard drive, cloud storage bucket, or network share. Standard storage systems permit files to be modified or deleted, which violates the fundamental WORM requirement.
FINRA Advertising Rules and Website Content
FINRA Rule 2210 governs communications with the public by member firms. The rule classifies communications into three categories – institutional communications, retail communications, and correspondence – each with different approval, filing, and recordkeeping requirements. Website content generally falls under the retail communications category, which triggers the most stringent requirements.
Filing and Approval Requirements
New member firms must file their website content with FINRA’s Advertising Regulation Department for review within ten business days of first use. Established firms may be required to file specific types of content, including communications concerning registered investment companies, variable insurance products, and certain options-related content.
Beyond filing, FINRA requires that all retail communications be approved by a registered principal before use. This approval process must be documented, and the records of approval must be preserved along with the communications themselves.
Content Standards
FINRA Rule 2210 establishes detailed standards for the content of communications with the public. Communications must be fair and balanced, must not contain exaggerated or misleading claims, must include appropriate risk disclosures, and must not predict or project performance. Performance data must be presented in accordance with specific requirements, including the use of standardised time periods and the inclusion of appropriate disclaimers.
These content standards are applied to website content with the same rigour as any other form of communication. When FINRA examiners review a firm’s website – whether during a routine examination or in response to a complaint – they evaluate the content against these standards. The firm must be able to demonstrate exactly what content was published, when it was published, and whether it was properly approved.
The Recordkeeping Connection
FINRA Rule 4511 requires member firms to make and preserve books and records as required under FINRA rules, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and the applicable SEC rules. This includes the preservation of all communications with the public – which means all website content.
The interplay between FINRA’s content standards and recordkeeping requirements creates a clear mandate: financial firms must not only ensure their website content complies with advertising rules, but must also preserve verifiable records of that content so compliance can be demonstrated after the fact.
Why Screenshots and PDFs Do Not Meet the Standard
Many financial firms attempt to satisfy their website recordkeeping obligations by capturing screenshots or generating PDFs of their web pages. These methods are familiar, easy to implement, and intuitively appealing. They are also inadequate for regulatory compliance.
Screenshots Lack Metadata
A screenshot is an image file. It captures the visual appearance of a portion of a screen at a single moment, but it preserves none of the underlying metadata that regulators and courts require. A screenshot does not record the full URL, the HTTP response headers, the server timestamps, or the complete page content including elements below the visible area. It cannot be searched for specific text. It provides no chain of custody. And it can be easily manipulated without detection.
PDFs Miss Dynamic Content
A PDF generated from a web page captures a static rendering of the page at a single moment. But modern financial firm websites are rarely static. They contain interactive elements, expandable disclosure sections, tabbed content areas, dynamic pricing information, embedded calculators, and responsive layouts that display different content on different devices. A PDF captures one static view and discards everything else.
Furthermore, PDFs generated from web pages often fail to capture the complete page. Navigation elements, footer disclosures, pop-up disclaimers, and content loaded dynamically via JavaScript may be absent from the PDF. The result is an incomplete record that does not accurately represent what a visitor to the website actually experienced.
Neither Satisfies WORM Requirements
Screenshots and PDFs are ordinary files stored on ordinary storage media. They can be modified, replaced, or deleted at any time. They do not satisfy the WORM storage requirement of Rule 17a-4. A file on a shared drive or in a cloud storage folder – regardless of its format – is not preserved in a non-rewritable, non-erasable format unless the underlying storage system has been specifically configured and certified for WORM compliance.
No Cryptographic Verification
Neither screenshots nor PDFs provide inherent cryptographic verification of their contents. Without a cryptographic hash computed at the time of capture and preserved independently, there is no way to prove that the file has not been altered since it was created. Regulators and courts increasingly expect digital records to include tamper-evident verification, and screenshots and PDFs provide none.
How ISO 28500 WARC Archives Satisfy Rule 17a-4
The Web ARChive (WARC) file format, standardised as ISO 28500:2017, was designed specifically for preserving web content. It addresses every deficiency of screenshots and PDFs, and it provides a natural foundation for regulatory compliance.
Complete Content Preservation
A WARC archive captures the complete HTTP transaction for every resource on a web page: the request, the response headers, the response body, and comprehensive metadata. Every image, stylesheet, JavaScript file, font, and embedded resource is preserved exactly as the server delivered it. The archived page can be replayed in a browser, reproducing the complete user experience – including dynamic elements, interactive features, and responsive layouts.
This level of completeness is precisely what regulators require. When an examiner asks what a firm’s website displayed on a specific date, a WARC archive provides a definitive, comprehensive answer that a screenshot or PDF cannot.
Cryptographic Integrity
Archives stored in WARC format can be cryptographically signed at the time of capture, creating a tamper-evident seal that verifies the archive has not been modified since creation. Aleph Archives applies dual cryptographic signatures using SHA-512 and RIPEMD-160 hashing algorithms to every archive, providing mathematically verifiable proof of integrity. Any modification to the archived content – even a single byte – is immediately detectable.
This cryptographic verification directly supports the Rule 17a-4 requirement that records be preserved in a manner that ensures their accuracy and integrity.
WORM-Compatible Storage
WARC archives can be stored on WORM-compliant storage media, satisfying the non-rewritable, non-erasable requirement of Rule 17a-4. When combined with proper serialisation, time-dating, and indexing – all of which are native features of the WARC format – the result is a recordkeeping system that meets every technical requirement of the rule.
Aleph Archives stores all web archives on WORM storage, ensuring that once a website capture is completed and written, it cannot be altered, overwritten, or deleted during the retention period. This is not an optional feature or an add-on configuration. It is the default storage architecture for every archive we produce.
Comprehensive Metadata
WARC files include extensive metadata for every captured resource: timestamps accurate to the millisecond, complete HTTP headers, content type information, server response codes, and resource relationships. This metadata provides the audit trail that regulators expect, documenting not just what was captured but when and how.
Building a Compliant Website Archiving Programme
Financial firms seeking to establish or improve their website recordkeeping should address several key areas.
Capture frequency. Establish a capture schedule that reflects the frequency of website updates. Firms that update their websites daily should archive daily. At a minimum, captures should occur whenever substantive content changes are made, and on a regular schedule regardless of changes.
Scope of capture. Define the complete scope of web properties that must be archived. This includes the primary corporate website, product-specific microsites, landing pages, blog content, investor relations pages, and any other web presence that contains regulated communications.
Retention management. Implement retention periods that satisfy both SEC and FINRA requirements. While Rule 17a-4 requires a minimum of three years for most records, firms should consider longer retention for records that may be relevant to ongoing or anticipated legal proceedings.
Access and retrieval. Ensure that archived records can be readily accessed and produced in response to regulatory examinations, subpoenas, and internal investigations. The Rule 17a-4 requirement for “easily accessible” storage during the first two years means that archives must be searchable and retrievable without undue delay.
Third-party audit. Rule 17a-4 requires that firms using electronic storage media file an undertaking from a third party who will furnish records to the SEC or its designee upon request. Ensure that your archiving provider can satisfy this requirement.
The Cost of Non-Compliance
The consequences of inadequate website recordkeeping are not theoretical. The SEC and FINRA have brought enforcement actions against firms for recordkeeping failures, resulting in fines, censures, and in severe cases, suspensions or revocations of registration. In 2023 and 2024 alone, the SEC imposed hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties on financial firms for failures to preserve business communications.
Beyond direct penalties, inadequate recordkeeping undermines a firm’s ability to defend itself in regulatory examinations and legal proceedings. A firm that cannot produce a verified record of what its website displayed on a specific date is at a significant disadvantage when responding to allegations of misleading advertising, inadequate disclosure, or unsuitable recommendations.
Conclusion
SEC Rule 17a-4 and FINRA’s advertising and recordkeeping rules impose clear, detailed requirements on financial firms regarding the preservation of their website content. These requirements demand more than screenshots saved to a shared drive or PDFs stored in a cloud folder. They require complete, tamper-evident, WORM-compliant records that can be readily accessed, searched, and produced.
ISO 28500 WARC archives, stored on WORM-compliant media with cryptographic verification, satisfy every element of these requirements. They preserve complete website content with full metadata, provide mathematically verifiable proof of integrity, and maintain records in a non-rewritable format for the required retention period.
Financial firms that continue to rely on inadequate archiving methods are not merely accepting operational risk. They are accepting regulatory risk – the kind that results in enforcement actions, fines, and reputational damage. The standard exists, the technology exists, and the regulatory expectation is clear. The only question is whether your firm has implemented a solution that meets it.
