Performance book of record or PBOR for short. A white paper just released by Eagle Investment Systems has fueled talk among investment operations professionals on just what PBOR is and how seriously the concept should be taken. The two critical questions which top the discussion list: just how substantially it differs from the investment book of record (IBOR) and how it […]
Vendor Risk Management: Financial Firms under the Gun
First of a two-part series on third-party risk. For the second article, click here. Activities can be outsourced, liabilities can’t. Financial firms may understand the legal distinction, but when it comes to managing the risk involved with using external technology providers, they are too often falling asleep at the wheel, warn operations and IT experts. The reason: […]
Private Equity Funds: Coming Clean with Expenses, Fees
With the US Securities and Exchange Commission calling private equity fund managers to the carpet for their fees and expenses, managers had better start preparing to be a lot more forthcoming about their practices to investors. Regulatory exams are just around the corner, warn operations and legal experts. At issue is what expenses should be absorbed by private […]
2015: Top Ops Goals for Surviving the Regulatory Crush
With the beginning of 2015 just hours away, middle and back office operations specialists across the globe should count on a visit from C-level executives to set the tone for the new year. Forget about praise for all the hard work in 2014. Everyone now has to roll up their sleeves to address a host […]
Risk Data 2015: Silos Down, Linkage Up
Data and Risk. Besides having four letters, the two words have plenty in common based on an exhaustive list of “what’s in” and “what’s out” for 2015 released by the EDM Council, the global trade association advocating efficient enterprise data management. The profitability of financial services firms has always been based on risk analysis, and that […]
AIFMD Annex IV Reporting: Risk Scrutiny on Deadline
The Alternative Investment Fund Manager Directive Annex IV. The long phrase describes at least three hundred points of reference data and other risk metrics alternative fund managers must provide regulators if they want to grab a “passport” to market their funds across European borders. That passport allows them to operate by a single set of rules, rather than […]
ISINs-Plus: Will ANNA’s New Data Offering Be Embraced?
When it comes to codes to identify and describe millions of financial instruments, the world certainly has no shortage. ISINs, LEIs, MICs and now FIGIs are just a handful of the acronyms used. pron Tali But tracking down all the necessary codes and linking them together to use in multiple applications, let alone ensuring their accuracy, […]
Fund Managers: Turning Investor Relations Into Big Bucks
If we make money for them, investors will be beating down our doors. That conventional wisdom for fund managers is starting to look a little bit stodgy and a lot less wise. Welcome to the new new world of investor relations for institutional and alternative fund markets. The standard of communication considered de rigueur for public firms, vulnerable to […]
Securities Finance Data Analysis: A Wing and a Prayer?
Oh, what a tangled web we weave, or make that what regulators weave! If the Financial Stability Board (FSB) has its way, back-office operations executives at fund managers, custodians and broker-dealers will be working overtime to track down hoards of data on securities lending and repurchase agreements with no certainty it will be of any […]
FATCA: Cost-Overruns Come With the Territory
Red might be a festive color for the approaching holiday season, except for the red ink many fund management shops are facing in cost overruns complying with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), foisted by the US Internal Revenue Services on financial institutions around the world. With the end-of-year deadline for arranging new budgets coming up fast, it […]