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 […]
Phone Monitoring Records: Mining for Profit?
Three years after the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) began requiring financial firms to record all mobile phone communications related to securities transactions, compliance remains dangerously weak. “Financial firms need to start thinking about just how they will comply and what additional benefits they can obtain for the costs involved,” says Rik Turner, senior analyst at […]
FINRA’s CARDS: Time to Get Ready
The US Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s proposal to collect megatons of customer account information is far from being implemented, but behind the scenes, operations, technology and data management specialists are rushing to make the necessary preparations for the first phase expected in 2015. The reason: despite all the lobbying against the initiative coined CARDS, short for […]
FATCA Responsible Officers: Be Careful, Very Careful
You’ve just been named by your financial firm as a responsible officer under the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA for short. Should you hand in your two-week notice, take the job in stride, or brace– and protect yourself — from hefty operational and legal liabilities? Those are the decisions and options now faced by potential FROs, or thousands of […]
Europe’s Consolidated Tape: Reality or Pipedream?
While the European Parliament has finally voted its support for the new version of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), one of its most controversial goals — establishing a central source of post-trade prices from regulated markets — is still far from fruition. The new MiFID mandate may include some stepping-stone dates, but the language of […]