Where SWIFT goes, Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. follows. Not a phrase heard very often, if ever. However, when it comes to moving the US financial industry to ISO 20022 messaging for corporate actions, DTCC appears to have relaxed some of its demands. Nearly a decade ago, SWIFT pressed the financial community hard to convert from […]
UCITS V: Just When Are Depositaries Liable, or Not?
When operations executives, their relationship management colleagues, not to mention their compliance directors can’t agree on how to talk about a topic, it qualifies as organizational confusion. When it’s industry-wide, it’s a bona fide hot potato. That is the situation today as custodian banks in Europe, acting as depositaries for traditional investment funds, attempt to make sense of […]
Where the Buck Stops: FINRA Fines BBH and Anti-Money Laundering Director
Absolute personal responsibility with little to no authority. That’s how anti-money laundering specialists at some of the world’s largest banks summarize the job description of Brown Brothers Harriman’s global director of anti-money laundering (AML) activities. Besides a hefty fine to be paid by BBH in a settlement, Harold (Hal) Crawford will pay US$25,000 to the US Financial […]
State Street Fine: Mind the Transition
When State Street Global Markets, a unit of mega custodian State Street, first acknowledged in 2011 that it had overcharged a UK pension fund client for transition management services, its public account sounded familiar. The bank did nothing wrong. Rogue employees, who violated bank policy, were to blame. They were dismissed and the client was […]
Reconciliation Moves Into Fee Accounting
Once viewed strictly as a matter of matching up cash, positions and transactions, the middle-office task of reconciliation is quickly moving into the trade-execution and post-trade space. The reasons are self-evident: not only are regulators demanding better control of operational risk, but C-level management are requiring more precise analysis of the bottom line for each unit. “It’s all […]
Russia: Is the NSD Coming in from the Cold?
With Russia’s regulatory and settlement infrastructure on the mend, foreign fund managers appear to be slowly forgiving the market’s past indiscretions and giving Moscow its long-awaited international stature. Granted, Russia has a long way to go before it can match the likes of its more established peers across the globe. Settlement delays, stolen securities, uncertainty […]
FCA Leaves Asset Owners to Self-Police Custodian Fees
In deciding not to monitor the fees charged by UK custodians for some value-added outsourced services, the UK’s securities watchdog may have just opened a floodgate of lucrative business for third-party consultants. A new committee just established by the UK fund management trade group Investment Management Association (IMA) along with fund managers and custodians is […]