The operational and legal challenges of complying with the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s potential requirement to report information on securities loan transactions to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority could outweigh the benefits of transparency to investors, say operations and legal experts. Instead of offering any feedback to the SEC’s proposal, some industry players asked […]
Securities Class Action Settlements: Don’t Leave Money on the Table
Recovering monies from class action settlements should be a risk-free revenue generator, but that’s not the case for many money managers, broker-dealers and their custodians. Instead, the process is fraught with operational errors, which results in billions of dollars in uncollected compensation each year. The COVID-19 pandemic has not only changed the types of securities […]
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 […]
State Street’s US$88M Fine Highlights Deceptive “Pass-Along” Custody Fees
How can a global custodian bank convince clients for almost two decades that a twenty-five cent cost to transmit a message through the SWIFT network transmission is really worth a $5 “pass-along” fee? Easily, when fund managers aren’t paying attention and no one at the custodian bank is minding the shop. That’s no longer the […]
Global Network Management: Artificial Intelligence the Charm?
For global custody network managers, analyzing the tsunami of data on dozens of local agent banks and markets to ensure the safety of client assets remains a sore spot. The use of artificial intelligence appears to be an elusive ideal, acknowledge panelists and attendees at a recent global custody event in New York hosted by […]
Custody: Unchartered Waters for Digital Assets
Qualified custodian. That’s a term that compliance and operations managers at registered investment fund advisors, not to mention the US Securities and Exchange Commission, are now grappling with, when it comes to the safekeeping of digital assets. The reason is two-fold. For starters, it is unclear whether the SEC’s custody rule for RIAs investing in […]
US T+1 Settlement: Not So Fast (Updated)
Update (May 13, 2018): Come late 2019, bank and broker-dealer members of the US Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. could look forward to reducing their settlement exposures by one day while retaining the current two-day settlement cycle. DTCC now says that US trades could be settled before the market opens on T+2 instead of the […]
Love Taxes, Operations: Be a Tax Ops Director
Knowledge of processing 1099 Forms, cost basis-reporting, Internal Revenue Service Section 871(m), financial transaction taxes and corporate actions, FATCA, and issues and errors management. Over ten years of corporate tax compliance experience necessary. Those are just some of the qualifications that large global asset servicing providers — Societe Generale, BNP Paribas and JP Morgan — […]
Global Network Management: Are My Assets Safe?
Global network managers of custodian banks are redefining the word relationship when it comes to monitoring local agent banks that safekeep assets of underlying clients in multiple countries. It is no longer enough to make a sporadic visit or have a phone call. Global network managers have become detectives sifting through mounts of data to […]
Middle-Office Blockchain: BNP Paribas, Broadridge
Recent announcements of blockchain pilots from BNP Paribas Securities Services and Broadridge Financial show how distributed ledger technology continues to make inroads into the post-trade arena. Both come with claims of operational efficiencies through a single indisputable source of data that reduces the potential for processing errors. BNP Paribas Securities Services project for corporate action […]