Trade compliance, regulatory operations, and technology managers at US broker-dealers will need to quickly cross their Ts and dot their I’s when it comes to documentation, data, and IT if they want to pass muster with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s examiners for reporting to the new Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) and survive one of […]
Race to the Patent Office for Syndicated Loan Blockchain
The results of a behind the scenes battle brewing between blockchain technology startup Hashlynx and mega-bank Bank of America to win a patent for a distributed ledger-based technology platform could end up determining how the operational difficulties inherent in the US$2 trillion paper-intensive syndicated loans market are eliminated and by whom. Whoever is awarded a […]
Federal Court Tells Interactive Brokers to Comply With FINRA Panel’s $1M Ruling: Right or Wrong
A US federal appeals court has just sent brokerages and their customers a somber message — a ruling by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s arbitration panel is absolute regardless of its validity. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 decision earlier this month ended a five-year dispute between Interactive Brokers and three former […]
National Banks as Digital Asset Custodians: Big Deal or Not?
When it comes to picking a custodian for cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, the US Office of the Comptroller’s decision to green light national and state banks might not be that much of a gamechanger for every fund manager. At least not in the short-term. Currently, investors holding cryptocurrency can keep their cryptocurrency in a […]
SEC’s Fair Value Rule: Don’t Drop Old Guidance, Say Critics
The US Securities and Exchange Commission’s new proposed rule for fund managers to fair value some of their assets has prompted a vocal minority of legal and valuation experts to question whether the regulatory agency should entirely scrap older guidance in favor of new accounting rules as the barometer for valuation. Fair value isn’t a […]
Etrading Software; Bloomberg-Kaiko Vie for Crypto ID Authority
If equities, bonds, and OTC derivatives have identification codes why shouldn’t digital assets? That’s the premise Etrading Software and the team of Bloomberg and Kaiko are betting on by recently throwing their hats in the ring to provide ID codes as the new registration authority for digital token identifiers (DTIs) expected to go live sometime […]
Prime Brokerage Enters Crypto Market, Sort Of
First it was digital asset custodians. Now it is aspiring prime brokers who are grabbing the spotlight in the evolution of the cryptoasset market as it tries to become an institutional investor-friendly industry, but with regulations still so murky cryptoasset prime brokers can only be pale reflections of their traditional prime brokerage peers. Although institutional […]
CSDR: Using Predictive Analytics to Prevent Fails
Predict and prevent– that’s what back-office operations managers at buy and sell-side firms preparing for Europe’s Central Securities Depositories Regulation (CSDR) settlement discipline regime are starting to think about so they won’t have to pay hefty financial penalties or endure buy-in requirements if they fail to settle their European trades on time. Instead of bemoaning […]
COVID 19: Custody Network Management Revisited
If fund managers can outsource middle and back-office operations and even trading desks, why can’t global custodians outsource network management due diligence and monitoring? That’s the question over a dozen former global custody network managers who spoke with FinOps Report over the past month are asking as concerns mount that the COVID-19 pandemic could eventually […]
Arcesium Sues SS&C: Fund Manager Access to Geneva in Limbo?
Middle-office operations managers at alternative fund management firms accessing SS&C Technologies’ Geneva portfolio accounting system through reseller Arcesium are now caught in the crossfires of its lawsuit against SS&C Advent and its parent SS&C, with their ability to use SS&C’s Geneva portfolio accounting system possibly in question. SS&C’s Geneva platform is one of the most […]