US and European sanctions aside, the Russian securities depository and regulators are staying on track toward their goal of turning Moscow into a major financial center through two badly needed operational reforms — the automated processing of corporate actions and electronic proxy votes for annual meetings in Russian corporations. In line with the global trend toward using ISO-compliant messages for […]
FINRA: New CARDS Does Little to Ease Data Collection Concerns
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) may think that putting new CARDS on the table will help clearing and introducing brokers comply, but they are still not too happy about the hand they’ve been dealt. Granted, in its new version of the so-called CARDS initiative, FINRA has bowed to industry demands with some changes to its initial […]
Regulatory Reporting: It’s All About the Process
As the regulatory reporting mandates keeping coming, there is no question fund management shops are feeling overwhelmed. But they are also realizing that offloading the management of the tsunami of reporting tasks onto third-party service providers isn’t working out as well as they expected. Both sides are on a steep learning curve in handling the mission-critical function and fund managers are learning the […]
Aggregating Swaps Data: Putting the Cart Before the Horse?
How can we effectively monitor systemic risk in the swaps market? That is the question now facing regulators around the world, and if financial firms were to have their way a federated approach to aggregating data would be the best option, they tell FinOps Report. Whether this scenario — one of the options now under review by […]
US SEC: Will It Finally Address CUSIP Fees?
After years of complaining about the fees they are paying for the issuance and use of CUSIP codes, issuers of fixed-income securities and the financial firms which use the securities identifiers may finally have found a friend at the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The US regulatory agency isn’t investigating CUSIP Global Services’ licensing fees […]
Bloomberg’s FIGIs: Can Data Giant’s IDs Usurp ISINs as Global Standard? (Updated)
ISIN — the 12-digit alphanumeric international securities identification code and longstanding standard for identifying securities for cross-border trading and post-trade processing — is facing an unlikely competitor, a proprietary code designed by commercial data giant Bloomberg. The 27-member board of directors of the Object Management Group (OMG), an international organization concerned with data integration standards, is set to […]
Hedge Fund Managers: The Big Headache of Healthcare Reform
FinOps takeaway: Your count of “full-time employees” may not be what the IRS says it is. Mainstream attention on the controversial US healthcare legislation has focused on how difficult or financially affordable access to health insurance may be for individual people. For employers, there is a far larger and only slowly emerging story in the huge difficulty and cost they […]
Fund Managers: Addressing the Regulatory Data Quagmire (Updated)
Dodd-Frank. EMIR. FATCA. AIFMD. Solvency II. The reporting obligations of fund managers just keep growing. The snowballing burden — with new regulations and reporting rules popping up at an alarming pace — is forcing many to step back from their usual resigned willingness to learn and follow one regulatory rule after another. The emerging alternative: looking at the bigger picture of […]
IBOR: Navigating the Options for a Dream Position Engine
As fund managers struggle to increase their investment returns, reduce their costs, and satisfy growing regulatory demands they are quickly embracing an old concept — data management — albeit with a new twist. Implementing the so-called investment book of record, or IBOR for short, has become a de facto requirement for fund managers who need […]
Europe’s Consolidated Tape: Reality or Pipedream?
While the European Parliament has finally voted its support for the new version of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), one of its most controversial goals — establishing a central source of post-trade prices from regulated markets — is still far from fruition. The new MiFID mandate may include some stepping-stone dates, but the language of […]