The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is planning to focus on fraud, brokers’ sales practices, and wrap programs offered by investment advisors, among of slew of other issues during its compliance examinations in the year ahead, the regulator said today.

The SEC announced its exam priorities for 2014, which cover a variety of issues at brokerages, investment firms, clearing agencies, exchanges and self-regulatory organizations, among other sorts of industry players. Its market-wide priorities include fraud detection and prevention, corporate governance and enterprise risk management, technology controls, issues posed by the convergence of broker-dealer and investment advisor businesses and by new rules and regulations, and retirement investments and rollovers.

For broker-dealers, the SEC says that it will target sales practices and fraud, issues related to the fixed-income market, and trading issues, including compliance with the new market access rule.

At investment firms, it focus will include advisors who have never been previously examined, including new private fund advisors; wrap fee programs; quantitative trading models; and payments by advisors and funds to entities that distribute mutual funds.

It will also be looking at perceived control weakness at exchanges; accurate recordkeeping and safeguarding of assets at transfer agents; and reviews of clearing agencies that are designated as systemically important; among a variety of other issues.

“We are publishing these priorities to highlight areas that we perceive to have heightened risk,” said Andrew Bowden, director of the SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations.

The SEC notes that the priorities listed for 2014 are not exhaustive and may be adjusted throughout the year in light of ongoing risk assessment activities. They are based on a variety of sources of information, including: tips from whistleblowers and investor complaints; filings with the SEC; information gathered through exams conducted by the SEC and other regulators; and, communications with other U.S. and international regulators.