Chief valuation officers could become just as important as chief compliance officers for registered investment fund managers. They also might discover that, like chief compliance officers, the position may carry personal risk of bruising regulatory penalties. The emergence of this new C-class executive was predicted by panelists at a recent global fund valuation forum co-hosted in New […]
Bloomberg Takes on KYC Onboarding for Hedge Funds
With its new offering called Entity Exchange, Bloomberg is trying to take a bite out the market share — especially among hedge fund managers — of the existing utilities for automating know-your-customer requirements. Its strategy: give the buy side more control. Regulators require financial firms to know just who they are doing business with before they […]
Still Holes in New Tax Code for Equity Derivatives?
Foreign fund managers, prime brokers, broker-dealers and banks entering into US equity derivative transactions are facing a taxing operational challenge. Worse, at this point it isn’t entirely clear how it will work. After the US Congress passed enabling legislation in 2010 and the Internal Revenue Service floated several proposed versions of the rules to massive industry […]
New US AML Rules: Tough Enough to Catch the Bad Guys?
The US Treasury’s new rules on how financial firms must handle their responsibilities to know their customers and prevent money-laundering will be operationally challenging to follow, but perhaps not entirely effective in identifying the bad guys. The most controversial aspect of the new requirements — finding out the identities of the beneficial owners of the customers […]
Bloomberg Tries Hand at Legal Entity Identifiers (Updated)
(Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to reflect additional information received after its initial publication). Does the financial market really need another New York City-based organization issuing legal entity identifiers (LEIs)? How Bloomberg intends to compete with established providers like the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), London Stock Exchange and Germany’s WMDatenservice is […]
Research Payments in Europe: Can CSAs Survive?
Asset managers of European funds may be breathing a sigh of relief thinking that European regulators will allow them to keep their commission sharing agreements (CSAs) to pay for research they use to make investment decisions for their clients. The reality is not so simple. As currently implemented, the CSAs may not comply with all […]
Panama Papers Fallout: Heavier KYC/AML Burden(Updated)
(Editor’s Note: After this article went to press, the US Treasury said it had adopted a rule requiring banks, broker-dealers, mutual funds, futures commission merchants and introducing brokers in commodities to collect and verify information on beneficial owners. The Treasury also sent to Congress legislation to approve requiring that companies formed in the US file […]
Transfer Agents, Brokers, DTC Debate SEC’s Proposed Rules
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s decision to overhaul the rules governing transfer agents has prompted a debate among shareholder recordkeepers on the one hand and broker-dealers and their allies on the other. It could easily take up to a year for any new requirements to take effect, However, transfer agents for equities and investment funds […]
DOL’s New Fiduciary Standard: Devil in the Word
What does it take to be a fiduciary to a retirement plan for the first time? Broker-dealers and other investment advisors that give clients of retirement plans recommendations on what assets to buy and sell will be struggling to answer this question as they create policies and procedures to fulfill the new fiduciary standard of […]
New SEC Reporting Forces Big Analytic Leap for Funds
Duration, options delta, gamma, vega. total monthly return and payoff profile. These are just a handful of the data points which mutual fund companies will be required to provide the US Securities and Exchange Commission if the regulatory agency finally adopts its new reporting rules for registered investment companies. For the SEC, the new data […]