With less than three weeks left until posting variation margin for uncleared swap transactions becomes mandatory, it’s do or die for fund managers still scrambling to be ready by March 1. As FinOps Report went to press, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said in a no-action letter that it would not take any […]
ADR Lawsuits: Depositary Banks on the Hotseat
When it comes to their handling of American Depositary Receipts, depositary banks have more than just an investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission to worry about. BNY Mellon, Citi and JP Morgan are being targeted with class action lawsuits filed in a New York court by disgruntled investors, alleging overcharges in foreign exchange […]
Blockchain 2017: Regulatory Reality from FINRA
Straight from the horse’s mouth, US broker-dealers have just been advised about the many ways their use of blockchain could impact their compliance with rules imposed by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) — including recordkeeping, clearance and settlement, anti-money laundering, trade reporting and customer statements. FINRA , the US self-regulatory agency for broker-dealers, has issued a […]
Pre-Release ADRs: More SEC Fines on the Way?
First ITG. Who is next? That is the question fund managers and other investors are asking themselves after learning that the US Securities and Exchange Commission fined broker-dealer ITG $24.4 million for violating regulations on how it used the pre-released shares of American Depositary Receipts (ADRs). The SEC says that ITG violated Section 17(a)3 of […]
OTC ISIN Fees: Who Pays What, When and Why
Financial firms will need to start preparing their 2018 budgets early now that the Association for National Numbering Agencies (ANNA) has given them some inkling of the fees needed to obtain new international securities identification numbers (ISINs) for over-the-counter derivative contracts. The largest swaps dealers and trading platforms would pay the most, while low-volume OTC […]
Making Every Proxy Vote Count is Hard Work
An investor casts its vote at an annual or other corporate meeting, but has no way of knowing whether it was actually received and counted. It could be rejected or even partially accepted, which defeats the purpose of casting the vote in the first place. While the US Securities and Exchange Commission has left market […]
Europe’s PRIIPs: When Being Clear Isn’t All That Easy
Fund managers, banks and insurance firms can now breathe a collective sigh of relief, but not for long. The European Commission has just announced that it has postponed by one year the implementation date for new legislation requiring financial firms to more clearly explain the risks and rewards of some investment products that fall under […]
Equity Derivatives Withholding Tax Remains Taxing (Updated)
(Editor’s Note: On November 14, 2016 SIFMA asked the US Treasury to postpone the implementation date of IRS Section 871(m) from January 1, 2017 so that it can resolve a difference of opinion with G5 countries. The UK, Germany, Spain, France, and Italy have told the Treasury that dividend equivalent payments made outside the US […]
Seeking a Few Good Men (Women) for ISIN Governance Role
Do you work for a fund manager, bank, broker dealer or altenative trading platform and have extensive product knowledge of interest rate, foreign exchange, credit and commodity derivatives, understand reference data, data management, architecture and implementation of data standards? If the answer is yes to all or most of the criteria, you could end up […]
New York Proposed Cyber Rules: Too Much, Too Fast
Cutting down one risk — that of a cybersecuity breach — is promising to add a lot more risk of other kinds. Those would be increased costs and liability. The New York State Department of Financial Services has gone further than its federal peers by mandating hard and fast policies instead of risk-based methodology to […]