After years of uncertainty about how regulatory reform would play out, money market fund managers may be relieved to know finally how they will be regulated by new rules adopted by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. But the news won’t be particularly comforting to the operations, compliance and technology staff of the funds, which represent a third of […]
Fund Managers: Addressing the Regulatory Data Quagmire (Updated)
Dodd-Frank. EMIR. FATCA. AIFMD. Solvency II. The reporting obligations of fund managers just keep growing. The snowballing burden — with new regulations and reporting rules popping up at an alarming pace — is forcing many to step back from their usual resigned willingness to learn and follow one regulatory rule after another. The emerging alternative: looking at the bigger picture of […]
European Transaction Tax: The Taxing Job of Getting Ready
Let’s face it. Consumers aren’t eager to pay sales taxes, but neither are retailers eager to charge and collect them. Taxes not only raise prices and potentially reduce the number of sales made, but tax collection also creates operational and technological burdens to administer. Now imagine operations and IT specialists across the globe having to […]
GATCA: Brace for FATCA on Steroids
The US Internal Revenue Service didn’t make any friends among financial firms abroad when it imposed the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) to make non-US financial institutions responsible for preventing tax evasion by US persons. Yet it definitely caught the attention of tax authorities in other nations. Several dozen of the world’s largest markets — led […]
Countdown to AIFMD: Addressing the New Risk Management Landscape
With the deadline for fund managers to apply for regulatory recognition as alternative investment fund managers (AIFMs) less than a week away, one would think they have already crossed their T’s and dotted their I’s when it comes to being prepared. But that’s not the case for many, according to industry research. Surprisingly, most small […]
BNP Paribas $9B Fine: Dirty Messages and Dirty Money
Motive, means and opportunity. Those are the three elements that criminal prosecutors look for, when setting up a criminal conviction. In a case involving BNP Paribas (BNPP) — the largest bank in France and the fifth largest in the world — prompting US$8.97 billion in fines and a guilty plea to a criminal charge in a […]
EMIR: Gaining Control of Old Errors and New Requirements
EMIR, it’s short for European Market Infrastructure Regulation. It has also become a four-letter word for fund managers struggling to fulfill reporting requirements. About five months after the effective date for fund managers and broker dealers to send details of trades executed on exchange-listed and over-the-counter swap transactions to recognized trade repositories, fund managers are bemoaning the number […]
FATCA: Four Steps to Meeting IRS Reporting Requirements
When the US Treasury made foreign financial institutions responsible for catching potential American tax evaders overseas, it also gave them a major migraine they are now finding difficult to alleviate. Determining with certainty who is responsible for paying US taxes just became their job. If they choose not to cooperate with the US’s Foreign Account Tax Compliance […]
Cybersecurity: Monitoring Risk in the Supply Chain
Outsourcing providers may promote themselves as trusted partners to their clients, but when it comes to cybersecurity risk, financial services firms would be wise to treat them as an extension of their own business — with all the hard scrutiny and ongoing monitoring of vulnerability they do inside their own corporate walls. And maybe more, […]
Bitcoins: What Compliance and Operations Experts Should Know
Bitcoins may sound like just a passing fad to compliance and operations specialists at fund management shops, but they would be foolish to presume that bitcoins won’t be part of their operations, and possibly soon. As the virtual currency gains momentum, they will need to brace themselves for new world of regulatory oversight. In recent weeks bitcoin has received […]