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 […]
ANNA Ramps Up Timetable for ISIN Allocation
Financial firms are quickly being armed with the necessary technical tools for how they can receive identification codes for over-the-counter derivatives in time to meet new regulatory requirements. They don’t have much time to spare. The Association of National Numbering Agencies (ANNA) wants prompt feedback on its proposals for the nitty-gritty data content, operational and […]
Judge’s Ruling Questions Attorney-Client Privilege for Mutual Fund Trustees
Independent mutual fund trustees will likely think twice before they say anything incriminating to their external legal counsel about how they administer mutual funds. The rights of mutual fund investors to fair advisory fees trump the rights of independent mutual fund trustees to attorney-client confidentiality, says a Washington State federal district court judge in a […]
Making Every Proxy Vote Count is Hard Work
An investor casts its vote at an annual or other corporate meeting, but has no way of knowing whether it was actually received and counted. It could be rejected or even partially accepted, which defeats the purpose of casting the vote in the first place. While the US Securities and Exchange Commission has left market […]
Europe’s PRIIPs: When Being Clear Isn’t All That Easy
Fund managers, banks and insurance firms can now breathe a collective sigh of relief, but not for long. The European Commission has just announced that it has postponed by one year the implementation date for new legislation requiring financial firms to more clearly explain the risks and rewards of some investment products that fall under […]
New York Proposed Cyber Rules: Too Much, Too Fast
Cutting down one risk — that of a cybersecuity breach — is promising to add a lot more risk of other kinds. Those would be increased costs and liability. The New York State Department of Financial Services has gone further than its federal peers by mandating hard and fast policies instead of risk-based methodology to […]
OTC Derivatives Players: The ISIN Engine Emerges (Updated)
Editor’s Note: On September 20, ANNA announced that the automated allocation engine for international securities identification numbers for OTC derivatives would also support the derivatives product taxonomy created by the FIX Trading Community as well as other open-standard product taxonomies. The mapping of the FIX taxonomy with the ISO taxonomy is set to be completed […]