Join S3 and FinOps Report for a free webinar on creating the right data linkages for reporting to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s Consolidated Audit Trail. Sponsored by S3 Save the date: Wednesday, October 21, 2020 Time: 4:30PM EST Contact: Michelle Lindenberger, S3 media/PR manager, at lindenberger.michelle@gmail.com for free dial-in details For broker-dealers’ trade operations, regulatory reporting, […]
CAT: FINRA’s Exams, Deadlines Won’t Be a Virtual Breeze
Trade compliance, regulatory operations, and technology managers at US broker-dealers will need to quickly cross their Ts and dot their I’s when it comes to documentation, data and IT if they want to pass muster with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s examiners for reporting to the new Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) and survive one of […]
Federal Court Tells Interactive Brokers to Comply With FINRA Panel’s $1M Ruling: Right or Wrong
A US federal appeals court has just sent brokerages and their customers a somber message — a ruling by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s arbitration panel is absolute regardless of its validity. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 decision earlier this month ended a five-year dispute between Interactive Brokers and three former […]
National Banks as Digital Asset Custodians: Big Deal or Not?
When it comes to picking a custodian for cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, the US Office of the Comptroller’s decision to green light national and state banks might not be that much of a gamechanger for every fund manager. At least not in the short-term. Currently, investors holding cryptocurrency can keep their cryptocurrency in a […]
Prime Brokerage Enters Crypto Market, Sort Of
First it was digital asset custodians. Now it is aspiring prime brokers who are grabbing the spotlight in the evolution of the cryptoasset market as it tries to become an institutional investor-friendly industry, but with regulations still so murky cryptoasset prime brokers can only be pale reflections of their traditional prime brokerage peers. Although institutional […]
CSDR: Using Predictive Analytics to Prevent Fails
Predict and prevent– that’s what back-office operations managers at buy and sell-side firms preparing for Europe’s Central Securities Depositories Regulation (CSDR) settlement discipline regime are starting to think about so they won’t have to pay hefty financial penalties or endure buy-in requirements if they fail to settle their European trades on time. Instead of bemoaning […]
COVID 19: Custody Network Management Revisited
If fund managers can outsource middle and back-office operations and even trading desks, why can’t global custodians outsource network management due diligence and monitoring? That’s the question over a dozen former global custody network managers who spoke with FinOps Report over the past month are asking as concerns mount that the COVID-19 pandemic could eventually […]
Arcesium Sues SS&C: Fund Manager Access to Geneva in Limbo?
Middle-office operations managers at alternative fund management firms accessing SS&C Technologies’ Geneva portfolio accounting system through reseller Arcesium are now caught in the crossfires of its lawsuit against SS&C Advent and its parent SS&C, with their ability to use SS&C’s Geneva portfolio accounting system possibly in question. SS&C’s Geneva platform is one of the most […]
EU’s New Shareholder Rights Directive: What Standards?
With Europe’s second incarnation of the Shareholder Rights Directive (SRD II) less than four months away, the securities industry can easily rely on automated communication channels to ease the compliance burden, but using disparate message standards to transmit data and various methodologies for calculating fees will still make the administrative work challenging. The European Commission […]
Fund Managers Find COVID-19 Makes Best Ex Best Effort
Complying with “best execution” requirements is nothing new for fund managers, but some could easily end up failing to meet their fiduciary obligations this year due to circumstances beyond their control — the unprecedented market volatility and remote working generated by the COVID-19 pandemic. About a dozen operations managers at US fund management firms who […]