WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 3, 2021) – The North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) announced today that its Electronic Filing Depository (EFD) System will expand to accept franchise filings through its new Franchise Electronic Depository functionality (FRED).

FRED will significantly increase the information and review tools available to filers and regulators. At launch, three states (Maryland, North Dakota, and South Dakota) will participate in FRED, and the NASAA EFD Team is actively working to bring other states on to the system. Developed through its EFD Steering Committee, FRED will be part of NASAA’s existing EFD framework. It is a sophisticated system with management, compliance, and communication tools that will make the franchise filing process more efficient for participating filers and states.

“We are pleased to continue to modernize and streamline the filing process and offer additional efficiencies for franchisors,” said Lisa Hopkins, NASAA President and West Virginia Senior Deputy Commissioner of Securities, and William Beatty, chair of NASAA’s EFD Steering Committee and Director of the Washington Securities Division.

Dale Cantone, Deputy Securities Commissioner for Maryland and Chair of the NASAA Franchise Project Group said franchise regulators look forward to the new FRED filing portal. “FRED should make franchise filings easier for franchisors, facilitate communications among state regulators and, perhaps most importantly, give prospective franchisees greater access to state registration data, including franchise disclosure documents,” he said.

Developed by NASAA, the EFD System was launched in 2014 and was used initially for the electronic filing of Form D for Regulation D, Rule 506 offerings with state securities regulators. The system was expanded in 2019 to facilitate the electronic filing of Form NF-UIT notice filings for unit investment trusts (UITs) with state securities regulators, and again in May 2020 with the development of the UFT functionality to accept additional corporation finance filings and issuer-agent registrations to accommodate the needs of filers and regulators due to COVID-19 restrictions. In addition to providing both filers and state regulators with tools to manage filings and create reports, the EFD system provides a website allowing members of the public to search and view notice filings made with participating jurisdictions for Form D, UIT, and now franchise filings. The system includes a secure file transfer protocol (FTP) that integrates with many state-specific systems and allows for seamless direct download of state filing data. For more information please contact efd@nasaa.org.

The NASAA EFD Team would like to thank the members of the EFD Steering Committee and Franchise Project Group for their significant contributions in developing FRED. Recorded training sessions on FRED functionality were held in late April and are available by contacting efd@nasaa.org. The EFD site is available at: www.efdnasaa.org.