Virtu Pays $2.5M for Leaking Customer Trade Data

Virtu Financial has settled with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for $2.5 million. The market maker was accused of allowing unauthorized access to confidential customer data and trade information by nearly all employees at its broker-dealer unit, Virtu Americas. This unit is significant, handling approximately 25% of market orders from U.S. retail investors during the period in question.

The SEC alleged that Virtu falsely claimed to use information barriers to protect sensitive customer data. Instead, from January 2018 to April 2019, employees could allegedly access customer names and trade details using a widely shared generic username and password.

Virtu voluntarily disclosed the issue to the SEC in 2019, coinciding with a business migration to a back-office database. The settlement, approved by a U.S. District Judge in Manhattan, resolves these accusations without Virtu admitting or denying wrongdoing.