E-trading platform for securities lending EquLend has agreed to pay pension funds and others part of a whopping $500 million and to revamp its governance policy to settle an antitrust class-action lawsuit which includes prime brokers Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase and UBS. The plaintiffs in the case led by the Iowa Public […]
Industry Squeezes SEC on Sec Loan Reporting
Wall Street continues to turn up the heat against the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposal for transaction reporting on securities loans, citing its contradictory analysis on short position and short activity reporting as well as potential operational shortcomings. The SEC recently reopened the comment period for its proposed securities loan reporting plan to adopt […]
US SEC Loan Reporting: Ops Cost of Transparency
The operational and legal challenges of complying with the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s potential requirement to report information on securities loan transactions to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority could outweigh the benefits of transparency to investors, say operations and legal experts. Instead of offering any feedback to the SEC’s proposal, some industry players asked […]
FREE WEBINAR: The Crypto Asset Market: What Fund Managers Should Know Before Investing
Hosted by CrossTower Save the Date: November 4, 2020 Time: 4:30 PM EST Contact: events@crosstower.com Cryptoassets aren’t just for retail investors any more. Hedge fund managers and some traditional fund managers have been buying Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a buffer against inflation and market volatility has led to far higher returns on investment for […]
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 […]
OCC’s DLT for Sec Finance: Broker Reconciliations Gone?
Securities finance operations managers at US broker-dealers clearing their securities loan deals through the Options Clearing Corp. (OCC) could soon reduce if not eliminate time-consuming manual reconciliation work thanks to its new distributed ledger technology-based platform. Once OCC’s new DLT-based securities finance infrastructure is up and running, its 72 broker-dealer users would have real-time access […]
Europe’s SFTR: Coming to US Shores?
US securities finance operations and compliance managers had better brace themselves for a US version of Europe’s Securities Finance Transaction Regulation (SFTR), caution industry consultants and market practicioners. So far, US post-trade operations and compliance managers have been spared from dealing with a US equivalent to the onerous SFTR. However, they shouldn’t be lulled into a […]
Reg Compliance 2019: Tips to Ease Data Pain
When it comes to handling the data challenges inherent in regulatory compliance, 2019 will no exception for middle and back-office buy and sell-side operations, compliance and technology managers. While the rules of MIFID II and EMIR likely took up much of their attention over the past few years, a survey of about fifty operations, compliance […]
US T+1 Settlement: Not So Fast (Updated)
Update (May 13, 2018): Come late 2019, bank and broker-dealer members of the US Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. could look forward to reducing their settlement exposures by one day while retaining the current two-day settlement cycle. DTCC now says that US trades could be settled before the market opens on T+2 instead of the […]
FINRA to Broker-Dealers: Are You Liquid Enough?
Risk and financial reporting managers at clearing firms and large broker-dealers could soon have to recode their back office systems and establish new procedures. Why? To quickly inform the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) whether they have a liquidity problem and report a lot more information about their financing deals. The self-regulatory agency for broker-dealers […]