Join FinOps Report (www.finopsinfo.com) for a FREE educational webinar on Managing Third Party CyberRisk: A Best Practice Approach Date: June 4, 2019 Time: 430PM to 530PM EST Interviewer: Chris Kentouris, Editor and Founder of FinOps Report Panelist: Joanna Fields, Managing Principal of Aplomb Strategies For dial-in information please contact Chris.Kentouris@hotmail.com You cannot have the best […]
Crypto-Miners: Are They Broker-Dealers or Math Geeks?
If it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck, right. But does it quack? That’s the question broker-dealer Templum Markets has raised to the US Securities and Exchange Commission about crypto-miners which has polarized the crypto-community into deciding whether they should be regulated as broker-dealers. Fueling the debate are conflicting interpretations of the Securities and […]
SEC to Transfer Agents: Clean Up Your Operations
Broker-dealers and banks aren’t the only ones running off with customer monies. The US Securities and Exchange Commission is cracking the whip on shareholder recordkeepers for doing the same. Misappropriation of issuer and investor funds was one of the two major operational deficiencies the US regulatory agency’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations says it […]
Consolidated Audit Trail: Those Messy Data Linkages
US brokerage operations managers are quickly turning their attention to how they will meet the cumbersome requirements for data linkages now that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has been stepped in at the eleventh hour to operate the new consolidated audit trail (CAT). The initial phase-in of CAT — 2a and 2b– starting in […]
FINRA’s TBA Margin Rules: Stuck in Government Limbo
(Editor’s update 1/31/2019) The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has decided to give collateral operations and compliance managers a temporary break from complying with new margin requirements for covered agency transactions. FINRA has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission a request to extend by an extra year to March 25, 2020 the implementation date of […]
SEC: Your Words Count in Suspicious Activity Reports
Anti-money laundering compliance managers at US clearing brokers will need to take a closer look at their process for when they file suspicious activity reports and what they say in light of a recent court ruling involving penny-stock clearing broker Alpine Securities. In granting summary judgment in favor of the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s […]
Europe’s CSDR: New Settlement Fines, New Ops Strains
Operations, technology, legal and network managers at custodian banks and broker-dealers are starting to feel penalized when it comes to all the data collection, reconciliation and numbers crunching work they must do to pass along to their clients the new fines for settlement fails required by Europe’s Central Securities Depository Regulation (CSDR). One of 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 […]
Margin: Tackling Initial Hurdle for Uncleared Swaps
First it was variation margin. Now it is initial margin for uncleared swap transactions causing compliance, operations and financial technology managers at fund management shops angst. As of September 1, 2019 many fund managers must know whether they meet the threshold for posting initial margin, calculate it correctly and set up the right custodial contracts […]
NY State of Mind for Cybersecurity: Take Three
The US Labor Day weekend won’t be a happy one for some cybersecurity compliance, technology and operations managers at New York-based banks. They will likely be scrambling to successfully implement the third phase of New York’s onerous cybersecurity rules, effective September 3. Among the multitude of tasks to complete under 23 NYCRR 500 encrypting data and […]