Like it or not, fund managers will have to make peace with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s new investment company reporting modernization program and liquidity management guidelines. They’re going to have to accept doing more to curb their liquidity risk and disclose more about their investment composition. Oddly, it’s a voluntary aspect of the new SEC […]
AML Compliance: Policing the Money Wires
Bank compliance, technology and back-office executives will soon be faced with a lot more headaches in preventing and reporting possible money laundering and other illegal activities conducted through payments transmitted by European wire transfers. Effective June 2017, financial firms — specifically banks — will have to monitor their wire payment messages more closely and file suspicious […]
SS&C Sued by Hedge Fund for Cyber Heist
Was incompetence, gross negligence, collusion or a good faith mistake the reason operations executives from fund administrator SS&C Technologies authorized the transfer of almost US$6 million from a client’s commodities fund to Chinese hackers? That is the question readers of a lawsuit filed by hedge fund Tillage Commodities Fund against SS&C Technologies will likely be […]
Fund Managers Outsource More Mid-Office Ops
Gone are the days when the middle office is maligned as being strictly a cost-center dragging down investment performance. Today more fund managers are concluding that more effective management of their middle office can not only reduce operating expenses, but also give them a competitive edge with investors and keep regulators at bay. Fund management […]
SEC to Fund Administrators: You Are Liable for Client Fraud (Updated)
(Editor’s Note: On July 25, 2016 Apex Fund Services announced two hires for compliance. It appointed Nitin Khanapurkar as global head of risk and compliance oversight. Apex’s Luxembourg unit tapped Sonja-Maria Hilkhuijsen as head of European compliance and data protection. Khanapurkar was previously senior partner at KPMG while Hilkhuijsen was chief compliance and data protection […]
Hedge Funds to Prime Brokers: Getting to Yes
Once in the catbird’s seat when picking prime brokers, hedge fund managers are now faced with doing their own sales jobs. They have to persuade prime brokers to accept them as clients with expectations that align. With prime brokers becoming far more selective, hedge fund managers might not get their first choice of prime brokers or […]
Bloomberg Takes on KYC Onboarding for Hedge Funds
With its new offering called Entity Exchange, Bloomberg is trying to take a bite out the market share — especially among hedge fund managers — of the existing utilities for automating know-your-customer requirements. Its strategy: give the buy side more control. Regulators require financial firms to know just who they are doing business with before they […]
Panama Papers Fallout: Heavier KYC/AML Burden(Updated)
(Editor’s Note: After this article went to press, the US Treasury said it had adopted a rule requiring banks, broker-dealers, mutual funds, futures commission merchants and introducing brokers in commodities to collect and verify information on beneficial owners. The Treasury also sent to Congress legislation to approve requiring that companies formed in the US file […]
Hedge Fund Managers: Five Areas of SEC Exam Focus
We have nothing to fear as much as the Securities and Exchange Commission itself. That is what hedge fund managers should be thinking about the US regulatory agency, warn legal experts. “A little paranoia will go a long way to ensuring they are prepared for a grueling round of exams this year,” says Ron Geffner, […]
Fund Managers: Reducing Costs of Collateral Fails
US$3.6 million. That is the average cost a fund management firm could incur for correcting failures to settle their collateral requirements for bilateral swap transactions in 2020. The amount comes to US$2.4 million for a broker-dealer. These sobering figures, delivered in a document entitled “Implications of Collateral Settlement Fails: An Industry Perspective on Bilateral OTC […]