When it comes to artificial intelligence, investment analysts, customer service managers and compliance managers seem to agree that the technology can help them make informed decisions more quickly and reduce investment, credit and regulatory risk. What about risk managers? They don’t understand how to incorporate AI into their risk metrics or participate in the decision-making […]
Form N-PORT: Managers Report Big Stress
Update 12/12/2017: Fund managers shouldn’t feel too relieved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s delay on when they must submit Form N-PORT. On December 8, the SEC said that fund managers can wait until April 2019 at the earliest to transmit their completed Form N-PORT to the regulatory agency’s Edgar system. However, fund managers […]
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 […]
Unique Product IDs: Can the OTC-ISIN Win the Job?
Can International Securities Identification Numbers (ISINs) become the foundation for unique product identifiers (UPIs)? The new Derivatives Service Bureau (DSB) which will allocate ISINs for over-the-counter derivatives, appears to think so. It also thinks that it might be the organization issuing the UPIs, although it is willing to work with others. If such a scenario […]
IRS 871(m) Withholding Tax: No More Relief for the Weary?
On October 2 when the US Treasury published its announcement of eight regulations scheduled for repeal or replacement, tax operations, compliance and legal experts found a major disappointment. Despite repeated industry requests for repeal, or at least more clarity about some of its provisions, the controversial Internal Revenue Service Section 871(m) on withholding tax for US […]
MiFID II and GDPR: Finding Where the Twain Must Meet
MiFID II and GDPR project teams had better get acquainted quickly. Although the objectives of the two European regulatory measures, might sound contradictory, financial firms must find a way to accommodate both, particularly when it comes to recording phone calls. They don’t have much time to create a strategy. MiFID II becomes effective in January […]
ISINs for OTC Derivatives: Is Licensing an Issue?
Update 9/25/2017: Financial firms using ANNA’s new Derivatives Service Bureau to receive ISIN codes for OTC derivatives can expect to receive rebates for overpaying far more quickly, DSB officials now say. Likewise, financial firms will also have to fork over more money if they have underpaid. Instead of waiting until the end of 2018 to recalculate […]
MiFID II: Proving Best Execution Is Data Challenge
With the arrival of MiFID II, trade execution will no longer be solely the concern of the trading desk. It will take a village of compliance, operations, portfolio managers, IT managers and even website designers for financial firms to prove they have met the best execution requirements of the second incarnation of the Markets in […]
SEC’s Liquidity Rule: How to Bucket Your Assets
Highly liquid, moderately liquid, less liquid, and illiquid. Classifying securities in one of those four buckets for the first time under the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s new liquidity rule will force compliance and risk managers at US mutual funds and exchange-traded funds to implement new operational procedures by next year. “Fund managers will have […]
Corlytics: Can Analytics Reduce Regulatory Risk?
US$7.2 billion. That is what Deutsche Bank paid to the US Department of Justice this year for misleading invstors in the packaging, securitization, marketing, sale and issuance of residential mortgage-backed securities between 2006 and 2007 which contributed to the financial crisis. It might be the highest fine levied so far in 2017, but there will […]