The Securities and Exchange Commission may have just given its official blessing to a shortened trade settlement cycle in the US come September 5, but the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC), its member firms and service providers have already been working long and hard on operational adjustments and industry-wide testing. All this effort will hopefully […]
Alternative Funds Industry Tackles Data Culture
Chief data officer (CDO) may not the most sought-after position at hedge fund management shops, but that isn’t stopping the C-level executives from pushing hard to create a better data management culture — including finding someone to take on the role, with or without the title. To support this effort, a new group calling itself the Data […]
Building Smarter 3rd-Party Cyber-Risk Programs
Financial firms needing to manage the cybersecurity risk of companies outside their own walls as well as they do their own can now count on a new risk assessment-as-a-service platform for help. Launched in March, the Denver-headquartered CyberGRX aims to take the gruntwork out of the due diligence process for third-party cybersecurity risk managers. It […]
DSB Floats a New Payment Plan for OTC ISINs
Swaps dealers and other financial firms which need international securities identification numbers (ISINs) for over-the-counter derivative contracts will pay for receiving the codes based on one of three new categories they select from a new pricing model released by the Derivatives Service Bureau (DSB), being launched by the Association of National Numbering Agencies (ANNA). The […]
New York Tightens Screws on 3rd Party Cyber-Risk
Out of sight doesn’t mean out of mind when it comes to following New York State’s new rigorous rules on how banks must manage cybersecurity risk. Cybersecurity information security officers (CISOs), IT directors, compliance managers, legal counsel, and vendor procurement specialists will need to work together to perform due diligence on third-party vendors, negotiate new […]
Variation Margin: Facing the Countdown to March 1
With less than three weeks left until posting variation margin for uncleared swap transactions becomes mandatory, it’s do or die for fund managers still scrambling to be ready by March 1. As FinOps Report went to press, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said in a no-action letter that it would not take any […]
Pre-Release ADRs: More SEC Fines on the Way?
First ITG. Who is next? That is the question fund managers and other investors are asking themselves after learning that the US Securities and Exchange Commission fined broker-dealer ITG $24.4 million for violating regulations on how it used the pre-released shares of American Depositary Receipts (ADRs). The SEC says that ITG violated Section 17(a)3 of […]
New York Raises Bar on AML and Sanctions Programs
Some US and foreign banks with New York offices will soon face the challenge of proving that their transaction monitoring and sanctions filtering programs for catching criminal activity really work. The New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) believes that although banks and banking-regulated institutions may already have AML programs, there are still too many illegal […]
RegTech 2017: Taking FinTech the Extra Mile
Those who think that RegTech is only about technology geared to meeting regulatory requirements should think again. The term, say operations consultants and IT specialists, also represents a new state of mind, oriented toward maximizing the use of current applications, eliminating unnecessary ones, and reducing data discrepancies. “Whereas financial technology, or FinTech for short, focuses strictly […]
OTC ISIN Fees: Who Pays What, When and Why
Financial firms will need to start preparing their 2018 budgets early now that the Association for National Numbering Agencies (ANNA) has given them some inkling of the fees needed to obtain new international securities identification numbers (ISINs) for over-the-counter derivative contracts. The largest swaps dealers and trading platforms would pay the most, while low-volume OTC […]