With regulators on both sides of the Atlantic wanting bespoke swaps trades to fall under new margin guidelines, fund managers can ill-afford to sit idly by and rely simply on the negotiating skills of their legal advisors to come up with the best terms possible. Buy-side firms will need bring the so-called uncleared swap transactions […]
FATCA: Four Steps to Meeting IRS Reporting Requirements
When the US Treasury made foreign financial institutions responsible for catching potential American tax evaders overseas, it also gave them a major migraine they are now finding difficult to alleviate. Determining with certainty who is responsible for paying US taxes just became their job. If they choose not to cooperate with the US’s Foreign Account Tax Compliance […]
Cybersecurity: Monitoring Risk in the Supply Chain
Outsourcing providers may promote themselves as trusted partners to their clients, but when it comes to cybersecurity risk, financial services firms would be wise to treat them as an extension of their own business — with all the hard scrutiny and ongoing monitoring of vulnerability they do inside their own corporate walls. And maybe more, […]
FINRA’s CARDS: Time to Get Ready
The US Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s proposal to collect megatons of customer account information is far from being implemented, but behind the scenes, operations, technology and data management specialists are rushing to make the necessary preparations for the first phase expected in 2015. The reason: despite all the lobbying against the initiative coined CARDS, short for […]
Not in the CARDS? US Clearing Brokers Protest Customer Reporting
A new reporting plan designed to flag possible misbehavior by US brokers, is drawing backlash from their back-office correspondent clearing firms responsible for complying. Their complaints? They run the gamut from the overwhelming costs and liabilities involved in following new rules to questions of how the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) is going to manage the flood of data […]
Compliance Officers: Taking the Regulatory Heat, Personally
Chief compliance officers at financial firms have always had it tough. Working long hours to address changing regulatory, investor and internal requirements, are an accepted part of everyday life. Yet, chief compliance officers and legal experts now say that the stress is hitting closer to home on a personal level. Securities watchdogs are drawing even […]
Margin Standards for TBAs May Edge Funds Out of the Market
Despite a six-month reprieve from collateralizing their US forward-settling agency mortgage-backed securities trades, many fund managers may be dismally unprepared for new margining standands, and shut out of the market. The answer won’t come easy or cheap: either upgrading or installing collateral management systems will be required. Then comes the cumbersome process of redrafting contracts or writing […]