A non-event. That is how European securities depositories; their bank and brokerage participants, fund managers and software vendors describe the migration of over two dozen European markets to a two-day settlement cycle on October 8. Yet they are all realizing that they must keep up the good work in ensuring seamless middle office procedures. Relying […]
New Criteria for US Accredited Investors: Looming Pain for Alt Funds?
The Securities and Exchange Commission might think it is protecting Americans from risky investments as it considers changing the criteria for defining accredited investors, but middle and back-office executives at hedge fund management shops are worried their livelihoods and client service levels are at risk. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act requires the SEC to […]
UCITS V: Devil in the Compensation Details
UCITS V — the latest incarnation of the decades-old European legislation easing cross-border marketing of investment funds — has fund managers angry about what they see as far more rigid rules governing their bonuses. Just adopted by the European Parliament, the legislation not only massively reduces the short-term variable compensation of so-called “risk-taking” staff, but defers […]
Custodians Under Pressure Refocus on Middle Office Basics
Squeezed from the top and squeezed from the bottom. It’s only natural that custodians and other asset servicing providers are feeling the pinch. A barrage of new regulations, shorter settlement cycle, new European centralized settlement platform on the one side and, on the other, mounting client demands are forcing custodians to refocus their attentions on […]
Fund Managers: On the Hunt for New Cybersecurity Officer
With the Securities and Exchange Commission now requiring registered investment advisors to prove they are doing their best to reduce the risk of data and other security breaches, hedge fund managers are quickly waking up to the need to assign a dedicated chief security information officer (CISO) to the task. Although the SEC’ s guidelines […]
Fund Managers Struggle to Analyze Swap Transaction Costs
Transaction cost analysis — an everyday discipline in the equities and fixed-income markets referring to the total expense involved in completing a transaction — is now becoming more important to swaps players who need to reap the same benefits as their traditional investment peers. Unfortunately, the US$650 trillion swaps market remains dismally behind other markets, leaving […]
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 […]
Fund Managers: Raising the Operational Bar for Uncleared Swaps
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 […]
Catching a Money Laundering Thief: Combing Data in a Tower of Babel
Looking at the multitude of employment ads placed by executive search firms and large global banks, it becomes clear that the world’s biggest financial institutions are spending lots of money hiring new staff to combat potential money laundering and other illegal activities. It’s an understandable kneejerk reaction to what has been an onslaught of mega financial […]
Outsourcing the CIO Role: A Rigorous Exercise in Matchmaking
In an increasingly complex environment of regulatory mandates and investment options, endowments, foundations and pension plans are taking a tack widely accepted in the post-trade communications market: outsourcing the critical functions of a chief investment officer. “They [asset owners] can easily create an investment policy — what they will or won’t invest in — but when it comes […]