Duration, options delta, gamma, vega. total monthly return and payoff profile. These are just a handful of the data points which mutual fund companies will be required to provide the US Securities and Exchange Commission if the regulatory agency finally adopts its new reporting rules for registered investment companies. For the SEC, the new data […]
The Derivatives ID Dilemma: Industry Accord Suggests an ISIN Solution
Is the International Securities Identification Number (ISIN) not fit for purpose for identifying certain types of derivatives, as claimed by some partisans for other identifiers or just “concerned citizens” of the derivatives realm? Or is the only possible solution for regulatory reporting requirements a Unique Product Identifier (UPI) based on the descriptive taxonomy developed by […]
Europe’s Revised Settlement Regime: Still Problematic?
latto nude venus3444 Just who is responsible for fixing a securities transaction which fails to settle on time? a. the securities depository b. the custodian of the injured counterparty c. the injured trading counterparty d. all of the above The European Securities and Markets Authority, the pan-European regulatory agency, recently decided that the answer should […]
Securities Finance Data: Useful or Not for European Regulators?
In asking market players to shed more light on their securities finance transactions, European regulators have unintentionally opened an operational and legal can of worms. The newly passed European Securities Financing Transactions (SFT) legislation includes a requirement that managers of new European traditional and alternative investment funds disclose their policies involving securities finance transactions in […]
FCMs: Fund Managers Swap One Cost for Another
Fund managers can no longer assume all is well in their relationships with their futures commissions merchants. As many face changing or even lost relationships with their FCMs, the big question they are forced to answer: What do we do now? Their choices: either find another FCM, reduce the number of centrally-cleared swaps transactions they trade, or […]
KYC Onboarding: Taking a Global Centralized Approach
Name, rank and serial number. That’s what national military organizations across the globe use to identify their members. Too bad the same simplicity can’t be used by financial firms when it comes to identifying their customers and counterparties, bemoan operations and compliance specialists. Instead financial firms must deal with a hodgepodge of regulatory requirements across […]
FATCA Reporting Round One: The Scorecard
Wrong client classification, missing documentation proving country of citizenship, and incomplete information on investor income and account values. Those are the top three mistakes offshore fund managers tell FinOps Report they experienced when trying to send information to their local tax authorities to comply with the recent first round of reporting for the US Foreign Tax […]
Swap Positional Identifiers: Buy-Side Group Positions Industry Standards
A fund manager executes an order for a swap contract with a broker-dealer counterparty on a swaps execution facility (SEF), then allocates the order to separate underlying funds and clears the trade through a clearinghouse using a futures commission merchant (FCM). At the end of this process, the fund manager might report the trade to […]
AML Transaction Monitoring: Five Steps to Getting it Right
If you think your anti-money laundering transaction monitoring software isn’t working correctly, what should you do? a) blame your vendor and replace the software b) blame your analysts and tell them to work harder c) review your data feeds and inputs d) throw your hands up and think you can’t do anything e) doubt your […]
Investment Research: Broker-Dealers Have Their Own Unbundling to Do
Fund managers may not be the only ones forced to unbundle payment for trade execution from research when the new incarnation of the European Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) takes effect. Broker-dealers will be facing a similar challenge and they could be just as unprepared. Ordinarily classifying the research they provide fund managers as “value add” […]