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, […]
Outsourcing: Three Steps to Preparing for a Possible Exit
If the experience of outsourcing operations or IT infrastructure is something like being married to the third-party service provider, ending that relationship can be just as painful and messy as a divorce. Fund management executives shouldn’t assume their outsourcing relationships are going to last forever or even to the end of the agreed upon timetable […]
Mind the Gap: Brokers Address US-European Settlement Discrepancy
Europe’s move to a two-day settlement cycle in October will cause a lot more stress for broker-dealers than just trying to communicate with their fund managers more quickly. The reason: their clients among US asset managers may have difficulty funding more of their purchases of European securities in at least ten European markets come October 6. From that […]
October 8: The Witching Day for European Settlement
With at least ten European markets set to implement a two-day settlement cycle on October 6, financial firms need to get ready to complete more than just one goal. They should brace themselves for a double-duty workday on October 8, warn settlement experts. That’s when they will have to settle trades in equities in at […]
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 […]
Asia-Pacific Post-Trade Operations: “Automation is Critical”
While Asia-Pacific is often touted as fertile ground for expansion by fund managers, broker-dealers and their asset-servicing providers, a range of bottlenecks remain in how trade details are acknowledged before settlement. In fact, Asia-Pac fund managers tell FinOps Report, newcomers may be surprised by additional operational and staffing costs to cleanup trades that don’t settle on […]
AIFMD and UCITS V: Custodians Under the Gun to Monitor Subcustodians
Global custodians always claimed to be selective about who they did business with. After all, billions if not trillions of dollars worth of client assets are at stake. Well now they have to be even more cautious about who they have selected as their subcustodians or local agent banks across the globe, and many are […]
Automating Corporate Actions: Four Ways to Generate Successful ROI
Automating the handling of corporate actions should be a given, considering the financial risk fund managers, broker-dealers and banks face if they make just one mistake. Apparently that’s not necessarily so. The reason: justifying the expense to C-level management isn’t as easy as it sounds, despite the need for automation being greater than ever before. […]
Collateral Management: Shifting from Cost to Profit Center
Once considered a dreary administrative task, collateral management is moving to high visibility for fund management shops, forced by new regulations to rethink their the use of the assets that back numerous transactions. Now a target for cost control with the ultimate goal of wringing revenue out of it, collateral management is coming out of the back room. “Depending on the types of […]
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 […]