As over-the-counter derivatives emerge from the shadowed status of private bilateral contracts into the relative sunlight of clearinghouse operations and regulatory reporting, there is a war heating up about a brand new problem — how these deals will be identified. Stocks, bonds, exchange-traded derivatives and other financial instruments are all regularly assigned unique codes that […]
Outsourced Collateral Management: A Calculated Choice
When it comes to collateral management for fund managers, why not let someone else do the work? Considering the cost and administrative burden of this complex processing function, outsourcing sounds like a great idea. There are certainly some mega custodians and other managed service experts only too willing to help out. However, in this apparent […]
KYC Utilities: How Many is Too Many?
When is four too high a number? When it is the number of virtually interchangeable third-party services specializing in helping financial firms meet their know-your customer and other regulatory requirements, acknowledge fund managers and even the providers themselves. Of course, just how many should be left standing and who that should be is a difficult question […]
News to Use: Whistleblower Update, Lending vs. Voting, and New TA Utility
SEC Chills Pre-taliation: The Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement of rules against whistleblower retaliation has just taken another giant step forward with the US regulatory agency’s first announcement it has penalized a firm for restrictive language in an employment agreement. Although the US$130,000 fine was against KBR Inc., not a financial services firm, attorneys specializing […]
Fund Managers: Fixing EMIR Reporting Glitches
Now that more than a year has passed since they’ve had to deal with new reporting requirements under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR), fund managers are belatedly waking up to the fact they could soon face whopping regulatory fines for not submitting correct data on their derivative transactions to accredited trade repositories. Regulatory operations […]
News to Use: Citi, DTCC and CUSIP Global Services
Limboland in Argentina?: Fund managers and global custodians relying on Citibank as their local agent bank in Argentina remain in limbo as to whether or even how Citi will be able to exit the subcustody business in that country. As of press time, FinOps Report was unable to verify whether Citi would still be shutting […]
US Mutual Funds Call for New Rules For “Lost” Investors
Investors of US mutual funds have long relished the benefits the investment vehicles provide: asset diversification, compounding and quick liquidity. Small investors gain the expertise of top portfolio managers, that would otherwise be available only to wealthy and institutional investors. But what investors may not know is that their mutual funds are legally required to […]
Common Tax Reporting Standards: The Tower of Babel
When US lawmakers decided to force foreign financial institutions to ante up the names of all their customers and investors that might owe unpaid US taxes, maybe they knew that they were burdening these financial firms with a complex and costly reporting burden. But who could have foreseen that they were launching a global fad among tax […]
FinOps Takes a Byte out of the News — 3/17/2015
A few news items that may be of interest to our readers… CalPERS Pioneering: US pension giant California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) has become the first pension plan to join a fully committed repo facility at Chicago-headquartered derivatives clearinghouse OCC. The repo facility provides contingency liquidity in the event of a member default or […]
Broker Dealers Beware: States Get Creative in Unclaimed Account Search
Knock, knock. Who’s there? If a potential censure or fine from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority or the Securities and Exchange Commission isn’t enough to motivate broker-dealers to ensure their middle and back-office operations are well oiled, perhaps an intensive audit by an unfamiliar firm sent by state regulators will be. The states’ objective: taking over billions of dollars worth […]