Is a securities firm

What triggers it

The lint's definition. It is a broker-dealer, investment firm, investment adviser, fund or portfolio manager, or robo-adviser, or supplies software to one. A market-data app that gives no advice is not this.

This covers a broker-dealer, an investment firm under EU law, a registered investment adviser, a fund or portfolio manager, and a robo-adviser that invests on a user's behalf.

It implies Provides financial services.

What does not

A market-data or charting app that gives no advice and takes no orders does not count.

Often confused with Is a listed company and Provides financial services.

The law it brings into scope

The kinds of law that name this activity in the LexLint law library, with the number of laws and jurisdictions in each, as of 19 Oct 2026. The examples are chosen by rule, laws in force first and the widest jurisdiction first; each section's page lists every law.

Area of law	Laws	Jurisdictions
Cybersecurity law Build software securely, handle reported flaws, and report incidents on a deadline. Wertpapierhandelsgesetz (WpHG), Section 80 ICT Systems and Security Mechanisms of Investment Services Firms Germany European Union (Digital Operational Resilience) Regulations 2025, ICT Systems and Continuity Duties of Financial Firms Ireland Real Decreto-ley 12/2018, Incident Notification Obligation Spain	32	22
AI law Tell people when they are dealing with an AI system or its output, and control the uses the law calls high-risk. MiFID II Algorithmic Trading Controls: Resilient Systems, Testing, Kill Functionality, Records and Notification (Article 17 and RTS 6) European Union General outsourcing requirements for a common platform firm: relying on a third party to perform operational functions, including critical or important functions United Kingdom Exchange Act Rule 17a-4, records to be preserved by certain exchange members, brokers and dealers United States	28	6
Communications law Get consent before marketing, calling, recording or storing data on a device, and honor an opt-out. MiFID II European Union	1	1

This activity implies Provides financial services, so every law that names that activity reaches it too. One more area of law reaches it only that way:

• Privacy law: 15 laws in 8 jurisdictions, through Provides financial services

  Have a legal basis for personal data, honor people's rights over it, and report a breach.

In a declaration

A role says who operates a product, so it is declared in the product's own lexlint.yml and never in a component's ACTIVITIES.md: a library cannot make the product that uses it a regulated party.

In lexlint.yml

History

In the registry since version 1.1, 16 Oct 2026.

Added for FINRA Rule 2210, communications with the public (United States), the law that turns on it.

In the glossary: Is a securities firm.

The activity registry is LexLint's open list; this page's text is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.