Best known for setting workflow standards for back-office communications between fund managers and custodians, the International Securities Association for Trade Communication (ISITC) is adding the middle office to its agenda this year. “It’s a significant area of operational risk,” says Jeff Zoller, who has just begun his two-year term as chairman of ISITC and is […]
Europe’s AIFMD: Will US Fund Managers Bite or Should They?
The EU’s new Alternative Investment Managers Directive (AIFMD) is supposed to give alternative investment fund managers the same cachet as their traditional investment manager peers following UCITS. Or so, European regulators think. But the allure of AIFMD appears to have been lost on a critical sector of the alternative funds market. US fund managers aren’t […]
Margin Standards for TBAs May Edge Funds Out of the Market
Despite a six-month reprieve from collateralizing their US forward-settling agency mortgage-backed securities trades, many fund managers may be dismally unprepared for new margining standands, and shut out of the market. The answer won’t come easy or cheap: either upgrading or installing collateral management systems will be required. Then comes the cumbersome process of redrafting contracts or writing […]
Harmonizing European Depositories May Be a Bumpy Ride
In trying to harmonize the operations of European securities depositories, regulators may well be creating unintended operational and financial burdens for the settlement houses and their members in dealing with trades which fail to settle on time. “The shorter timetable for settlement and the fines for late settlement will be far more difficult to implement […]
Reconciliation Moves Into Fee Accounting
Once viewed strictly as a matter of matching up cash, positions and transactions, the middle-office task of reconciliation is quickly moving into the trade-execution and post-trade space. The reasons are self-evident: not only are regulators demanding better control of operational risk, but C-level management are requiring more precise analysis of the bottom line for each unit. “It’s all […]
Russia: Is the NSD Coming in from the Cold?
With Russia’s regulatory and settlement infrastructure on the mend, foreign fund managers appear to be slowly forgiving the market’s past indiscretions and giving Moscow its long-awaited international stature. Granted, Russia has a long way to go before it can match the likes of its more established peers across the globe. Settlement delays, stolen securities, uncertainty […]
What to Do When the CFTC Gets Into Your Phone Calls
A new requirement from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) that all oral communications on some over-the-counter transactions be recorded, could end up being technologically and economically unfeasible. In its role as overseer of the burgeoning US$650 billion swaps market — a designation assigned by the US Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act — the CFTC […]
FCA Leaves Asset Owners to Self-Police Custodian Fees
In deciding not to monitor the fees charged by UK custodians for some value-added outsourced services, the UK’s securities watchdog may have just opened a floodgate of lucrative business for third-party consultants. A new committee just established by the UK fund management trade group Investment Management Association (IMA) along with fund managers and custodians is […]
FATCA: How to Reduce Ops Risk
At the core of FATCA is the need for foreign financial intermediaries to know and report whether securities accounts are owned by US persons who are deliberately trying to avoid paying their correct share of US taxes.In fulfilling the rules of FATCA, the US legislation designed to catch US tax evaders, financial firms would be […]