Data and Risk. Besides having four letters, the two words have plenty in common based on an exhaustive list of “what’s in” and “what’s out” for 2015 released by the EDM Council, the global trade association advocating efficient enterprise data management. The profitability of financial services firms has always been based on risk analysis, and that […]
AIFMD Annex IV Reporting: Risk Scrutiny on Deadline
The Alternative Investment Fund Manager Directive Annex IV. The long phrase describes at least three hundred points of reference data and other risk metrics alternative fund managers must provide regulators if they want to grab a “passport” to market their funds across European borders. That passport allows them to operate by a single set of rules, rather than […]
ISINs-Plus: Will ANNA’s New Data Offering Be Embraced?
When it comes to codes to identify and describe millions of financial instruments, the world certainly has no shortage. ISINs, LEIs, MICs and now FIGIs are just a handful of the acronyms used. But tracking down all the necessary codes and linking them together to use in multiple applications, let alone ensuring their accuracy, can be […]
Fund Managers: Turning Investor Relations Into Big Bucks
If we make money for them, investors will be beating down our doors. That conventional wisdom for fund managers is starting to look a little bit stodgy and a lot less wise. Welcome to the new new world of investor relations for institutional and alternative fund markets. The standard of communication considered de rigueur for public firms, vulnerable to […]
Securities Finance Data Analysis: A Wing and a Prayer?
Oh, what a tangled web we weave, or make that what regulators weave! If the Financial Stability Board (FSB) has its way, back-office operations executives at fund managers, custodians and broker-dealers will be working overtime to track down hoards of data on securities lending and repurchase agreements with no certainty it will be of any […]
FATCA: Cost-Overruns Come With the Territory
Red might be a festive color for the approaching holiday season, except for the red ink many fund management shops are facing in cost overruns complying with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), foisted by the US Internal Revenue Services on financial institutions around the world. With the end-of-year deadline for arranging new budgets coming up fast, it […]
Shareholder Ballots: The Quest to Confirm a Vote
An investor receives information about a corporate agenda and casts its votes. It happens every day of the week and most frequently from February through June when most US firms hold their annual meetings. But just because a shareholder votes, doesn’t necessarily mean there’s any way to verify the vote made its way to the issuer, […]
FINRA: New CARDS Does Little to Ease Data Collection Concerns
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) may think that putting new CARDS on the table will help clearing and introducing brokers comply, but they are still not too happy about the hand they’ve been dealt. Granted, in its new version of the so-called CARDS initiative, FINRA has bowed to industry demands with some changes to its initial […]
Regulatory Reporting: It’s All About the Process
As the regulatory reporting mandates keeping coming, there is no question fund management shops are feeling overwhelmed. But they are also realizing that offloading the management of the tsunami of reporting tasks onto third-party service providers isn’t working out as well as they expected. Both sides are on a steep learning curve in handling the mission-critical function and fund managers are learning the […]
New Criteria for US Accredited Investors: Looming Pain for Alt Funds?
The Securities and Exchange Commission might think it is protecting Americans from risky investments as it considers changing the criteria for defining accredited investors, but middle and back-office executives at hedge fund management shops are worried their livelihoods and client service levels are at risk. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act requires the SEC to […]