The International Swaps and Derivatives Association has published a set of derivatives trading principles, which are part of an effort to get regulators around the world to harmonise their efforts at derivatives market standardisation. The principles include a call for greater flexibility on US swap execution facilities.
In the wake of the financial crisis, the industry has been hit hard by an almost continuous stream of conduct related issues and fines; including PPI, Libor, and more recently, Forex fixing. With high levels of media and political exposure, the industry has seen its reputation suffer
Long-term investors are deeply concerned about their ability to find liquidity, with nearly 90% afraid that predatory high-frequency traders are preying on their flows, according to a new survey by block-trading network Liquidnet.
The Banking Industry Architecture Network has announced six new members including ACI Worldwide, Atos, EY and Zafin. Its global network now numbers 58 banks, service providers, software vendors and academic partners.
The European Parliament’s Payment Accounts Directive creates a right to a basic bank account, which must be enshrined in national law across Europe by September 2016. But the rules represent a challenge to banks’ ability to manage their business – one that speaks to the heart of the current regulatory debate, according to delegates at the Payments International conference in London this week.
The UK should lead the development of an EU Capital Markets Union because of its better-established markets, according to a report from a House of Lords committee published today.
As international regulators demand more detail from banks on payments to individuals and companies, the first order of business is to ensure compliance with mandates. Migrating Swift MT payment formats to ISO 20022 will allow the industry to shape the transformation of payment messaging standards rather than have others shape it – but there is a need to set timelines for implementation or cede control.
The financial services industry faces a daunting task as the European Commission’s MiFID II legislation draws close to its final deadline, and grave concerns about inconsistencies in the rules and the pressures of meeting it remain.
West Africa’s capital markets are changing fast as regional integration and local stock exchange initiatives combineto transform its infrastructure. Increasing adoption of FIX and a promising demographic profile help too, according to speakers at the FIX Trading Community conference in London this week.
Financial market regulations across the globe are increasingly focusing on risk management. This includes ensuring it is clear who firms are trading with and for, and confirming that firms can identify the instruments being traded. As a result, the field of reference data is increasingly held under the regulatory microscope and that lens extends to the standards used to identify financial instruments, writes Chris Pickles.
The European Securities and Markets Association is consulting financial institutions on which messaging protocol and data formats would be best for trade reporting under MiFIR. As the timeframe for reporting comes ever closer to real-time, the consequences could be serious.
SIA, in partnership with Colt, has been awarded the contract to connect Hungarian central securities depository Keler to T2S, the new single European platform for the settlement of transactions in domestic and cross-border securities.
Swift has added peer assessment to its Sanctions Testing service. An optional service it will allow financial institutions to compare the performance of their sanctions filters against those of other participating institutions.
Fenergo has enhanced its Regulatory Rules Engine software, used by investment banks investment banks and capital market firms for client lifecycle. The software enables financial institutions to comply with a range of regulatory frameworks based on a single, out-of-the-box repository of rules.
January’s Basel Committee on Banking Supervision report on banks’ progress towards BCBS 239 compliance threw up a telling contradiction. While global systemically important banks “are increasingly aware of the importance” of the BCBS 239 project, their sense of preparedness has decreased. In 2013, 10 of the 31 eligible banks reported they would be unable to comply fully by the 2016 deadline. This year, that number rose to 14. It is understandable that there is more work to be done, but how is it that the G-SIBs are moving backwards?
European regulator ESMA is preparing to issue hundreds of pages of MiFID II cost-benefit analysis and Q&A material between now and July – but market participants are concerned about unresolved issues and rushed implementation as the deadline draws ever closer.
In the Oscar-winning film The Theory of Everything the lead character Stephen Hawking lays out his vision of a single equation that explains all physical aspects of the universe. This rarefied scientific debate has echoes in the more prosaic world of Transaction Cost Analysis in financial markets, where the availability of more granular data coupled with pressure from regulators is driving a whole new wave of research and analysis, says ITG’s Michael Sparkes.
The Financial Conduct Authority plans to conduct a market study of the investment and corporate banking sector to decide if competition in the sector is working properly. It may also look into the asset management later in the year.
Financial institutions are being urged to revisit their cyber-security following revelations that an online gang using the Carbanak malware stole up to $1 billion from banks in 30 countries around the world in a series of highly-sophisticated attacks over the last two years.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Bucharest Stock Exchange are seeking to attract international investors to the Romanian stock market, following the launch of an ambitious government reform programme aimed at getting the country upgraded from frontier to emerging market status.
Japan’s Financial Services Agency has ambitious plans to more than double the proportion of foreign investors in Tokyo’s securities market by 2020. The plans are part of a wider shift linked to ‘Abenomics’, the government push to revitalise Japan’s economy.
Avox, the DTCC’s legal entity reference data subsidiary, has launched a series of web-based application programming interfaces designed to support faster access to data, including legal entity identifiers, legal names, addresses, industry classifications and corporate hierarchies.
Dutch state-owned bank SNS is to upgrade its treasury and risk infrastructure using services from vendor SunGard. The bank wants to centralise its credit and market risk management, including initial margin and potential future exposure, in view of Basel requirements which oblige banks to adhere to higher standards of record keeping and transparency.
As 2015 begins to gather momentum, it looks like the end is finally in sight for PPI claims, according to the Financial Conduct Authority. Back in September, the FCA announced a further drop of 11% in complaints from the first half of 2014, continuing a downward trend that began back in 2012.
Like opening Pandora’s box, the emergence of swap execution facilities in US derivatives markets has brought unexpected consequences and problems as well as benefits. In some cases, asset managers are actively looking to avoid trading on the new platforms and even turning to other asset classes, according to a new report by OpenLink.
Finland’s central securities depository Euroclear Finland has just completed the first stage of a major project to completely replace its securities processing infrastructure. The CSD says the move is part of its preparations for T2S, the European Central Bank project to harmonise Europe’s post trade infrastructure.
A renewed push by a group of 11 European countries could see a controversial Financial Transaction Tax introduced across the EU in less than 12 months, with harmful effects on securities markets and extraterritorial repercussions – even in countries which have not signed up, such as the UK.
Italian banks are preparing for T2S, as Europe seeks to reform its cross-border trading infrastructure and bring down barriers between EU countries. The preparations are driving smaller regional banks to make deals with larger global banks as they prepare for implementation in June.
US Commodity Futures Trading Commission Commissioner J. Christopher Giancarlo has condemned the CFTC’s implementation of swaps trading regulation reforms, describing its approach as highly over-engineered, disproportionately modelled on the US futures market and biased against both human discretion and technological innovation.
Securities market regulators are beginning to clamp down on market abuse linked to complex high-frequency trading strategies – but there is much more to be done, according to a new report by financial consultancy Kinetic Partners.
With so much attention on FATCA in recent times, the financial services industry could be forgiven for seeing it as the most obtrusive regulation ever imposed. This view will soon change. Once the Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) comes into force, financial institutions will have far greater challenges to overcome.
The global financial crisis triggered an avalanche of fierce criticism for the financial industry, the repercussions of which are still being felt. In its wake industry bodies around the world introduced stringent regulations that require in-depth auditing to achieve compliance and complete corporate accountability.
The Competition and Markets Authority has recently embarked on a full investigation into the so-called competitive stranglehold the four big banks – Lloyds, RBS, Barclays and HSBC – have over the UK market place. The CMA ended a five month consultation with the announcement of the investigation into accounts for customers and corporate accounts for small businesses – the CMA has already identified large branch networks and free current accounts as being barriers to entry for new banks
For better or worse, financial institutions are more risk averse than ever. This is the direct result of continuing and growing regulatory scrutiny over a broad range of activities, including the compliance of financial institutions in areas such as international sanctions, the prevention of money laundering, the funding of terrorism or the facilitation of tax evasion.
London-based financial services professionals moving to new jobs in 2014 boosted their salaries by an average of 18% – and an increasing number of people did so, with year-on-year figures showing a 51% increase in people looking for new positions. But gloomy economic forecasts, combined with the seasonal drop in hiring over the Christmas period suggest that firms have postponed major hires to the current quarter.
By facilitating payments, and clearing and settling transactions in the securities and derivatives markets, financial market infrastructures are essential nodes in a complex and ever more integrated international network of capital flows. The consequent inter-dependencies between financial market infrastructures will create new resiliency challenges
Derivatives market participants are concerned about the impact of new margin requirements for non-cleared derivatives under Basel III, with a large number unsure whether they will even have to comply with the rules, according to new survey published today by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association.
Digital and alternative currencies, including Bitcoin, can now be used for transactions in California, following the implementation of bill AB129 on 1 January 2015. The new bill is a step forward for cryptocurrencies which have faced tough opposition and scrutiny from global regulators. However, serious doubts about the safety of digital currencies have been voiced by banks.
The European Securities and Markets Authority says that crowdfunding platforms are incentivised to operate in a way that they fall outside existing regulations, which is holding back their growth and increasing risks for investors.
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