The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) annual examination priorities report is used by broker-dealers, investment firms, and other registered entities to understand what issues or topics will be the focus of the Division of Examinations in the coming year.

The 2023 report, released Tuesday, laid out areas under the microscope this year, including compliance with the agency’s Marketing Rule and Regulation Best Interest (Reg BI). Each policy is expected to receive greater scrutiny since taking full effect in 2022 and 2020, respectively.

The SEC tends to evaluate compliance with new rules with a lighter, “good-faith-efforts” view in the first year, said Carlo di Florio, global advisory leader at ACA Group and a former SEC and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority regulator. In Years 2 and 3, however, “the training wheels come off, and the examiners dig into the substantive provisions and details” of a rule, he said. That will be the case with the Marketing Rule and Reg BI in 2023, he said.