Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic are putting banks in a Catch-22 of established regulatory penalties for serving financial criminals while simultaneously warning them that cleaning house by category will attract their attention. Recent announcements by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) suggest that banks better […]
SEC to Fund Administrators: You Are Liable for Client Fraud (Updated)
(Editor’s Note: On July 25, 2016 Apex Fund Services announced two hires for compliance. It appointed Nitin Khanapurkar as global head of risk and compliance oversight. Apex’s Luxembourg unit tapped Sonja-Maria Hilkhuijsen as head of European compliance and data protection. Khanapurkar was previously senior partner at KPMG while Hilkhuijsen was chief compliance and data protection […]
Hedge Funds to Prime Brokers: Getting to Yes
Once in the catbird’s seat when picking prime brokers, hedge fund managers are now faced with doing their own sales jobs. They have to persuade prime brokers to accept them as clients with expectations that align. With prime brokers becoming far more selective, hedge fund managers might not get their first choice of prime brokers or […]
RIAs: Hail to the Chief Valuation Officer?
Chief valuation officers could become just as important as chief compliance officers for registered investment fund managers. They also might discover that, like chief compliance officers, the position may carry personal risk of bruising regulatory penalties. The emergence of this new C-class executive was predicted by panelists at a recent global fund valuation forum co-hosted in New […]
T. Rowe Price Investor Payback: The Unpushed Button
For fund managers, proxy voting isn’t a minor housekeeping matter. Depending on just how financially controversial the corporate agenda is, the vote can be as crucial to the health of investor portfolios as any trading decision. There is plenty of regulatory rulemaking to keep everyone’s eye on the ball so when something goes awry, it’s big […]
Bloomberg Takes on KYC Onboarding for Hedge Funds
With its new offering called Entity Exchange, Bloomberg is trying to take a bite out the market share — especially among hedge fund managers — of the existing utilities for automating know-your-customer requirements. Its strategy: give the buy side more control. Regulators require financial firms to know just who they are doing business with before they […]
Still Holes in New Tax Code for Equity Derivatives?
Foreign fund managers, prime brokers, broker-dealers and banks entering into US equity derivative transactions are facing a taxing operational challenge. Worse, at this point it isn’t entirely clear how it will work. After the US Congress passed enabling legislation in 2010 and the Internal Revenue Service floated several proposed versions of the rules to massive industry […]
Clearing the Decks for Uncleared Swaps Margins
Asset managers might not be affected by the new margin requirements on uncleared swap transactions for at least a year. Nonetheless, they are slowly starting to prepare for the inevitable legal and operational teething pains. US banking regulators and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) have decided that effective September 2016 or March 2017, depending on […]
Next Up on Blockchain: Reconciliation and Syndicated Loans
Start small, think big is what aficionados of blockchain technology see as the most effective strategy in implementing the newfangled architecture. Skipping the more complicated or broader reaching applications for the moment, blockchain appears to be gaining momentum in specialized operations serving smaller user groups . Although no one cited any live cases, representatives from FIS and Symbiont […]
Panama Papers Fallout: Heavier KYC/AML Burden(Updated)
(Editor’s Note: After this article went to press, the US Treasury said it had adopted a rule requiring banks, broker-dealers, mutual funds, futures commission merchants and introducing brokers in commodities to collect and verify information on beneficial owners. The Treasury also sent to Congress legislation to approve requiring that companies formed in the US file […]