It should be no shock that the risk for banks of being caught-out for non-compliant activity has soared in recent years in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008. Banks are being monitored more closely now than ever before and it’s been difficult to escape without scrutiny or a heavy reputational impact.
The UK Government is to examine the potential of digital currencies as positive force in the wider economy and as a means of encouraging innovation in financial services.
A Financial Conduct Authority investigation that found banks and brokers are failing to provide best execution highlights the need for more responsibility and education among their buy-side customers.
New intraday liquidity reporting tools set out by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision could pose a serious challenge for banks, according to a new white paper by Swift.
Regulators across the globe appear divided on the question of whether tighter control of algorithmic trading is necessary: the Australians are pretty laid back about it, the Germans are ahead of the game, while political debate rages in the US …
Australian broker Macquarie Futures has begun using a cloud-based reconciliation service from Gresham Computing and Amazon Web Services, which the broker says will help it to make its North American derivatives business more efficient.
Fund managers are showing a “significantly more positive attitude” to the imminent Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive. Initial fears appear to have subsided, the challenges and predicted costs have significantly reduced and the industry is realising the opportunities.
One company grateful for the flurry of publicity given to the practice of front-running orders by the publication of Michael Lewis’s book Flash Boys earlier this year is New York-based Trillium, whose Surveyor market manipulation detection tool can be used to detect the practice.
In April, US post-trade utility the DTCC called for the US settlement cycle to be moved to T+2, to bring it into line with what’s happening in the rest of the world, which is converging on T+2 settlement cycles – at different speeds.
Tullett Prebon has launched an aggregated swap data repositories data feed for the interest rate swaps market, aiming to increase price transparency in accordance with the Dodd-Frank Act.
Could the establishment of an enhanced outsourcing oversight capability do more for asset managers than simply satisfy the FCA? A more mature set of oversight metrics could be used to provide foresight into how the outsourcer might perform in the future.
The past month has been a busy one for G-SIBs – global systemically important banks – as they confront the challenges of “what full compliance looks like” in the context of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and its Principles for Effective Risk Data Aggregation and Risk Reporting.
An question that continues to be asked is will the increased adoption of ISO 20022 facilitate the consolidation of payments clearing utilities and see the introduction of new services for customers? This suggests that despite the fact that ISO 20022 has been around for more than decade, confusion still exists over what it is.
Canadian ‘challenger’ exchange Aequitas, which plans to favour long-term investors by discouraging HFT, has chosen a trading engine and several other tools from MillenniumIT, the Sri Lanka-based technology company owned by the London stock Exchange.
Collateral management as it is currently known will no longer exist within a few years as increased regulatory demands, rising levels of automation and growth of industry tools to optimise collateral transform the industry, according to a new survey and report by Sapient Global Markets.
In a post-2008 crisis landscape dominated by regulatory reform, compliance is only part of the issue. If firms can address how they manage multiple data sets and deploy a truly enterprise-wide model, they can capitalise on the real opportunity – achieving a competitive advantage.
BIAN – the Bank Industry Architecture Network – has made further progress in its efforts to promote banking system standards internationally with the US First Niagara Bank and Computer Sciences Corporation and Japan’s Nomura joining as members.
Looked at from a data perspective, many new regulations have overlapping requirements that come back to customer data. Banking Technology joined forces with Markit І Genpact KYC Services and regulatory specialist JWG to look at how firms are approaching the challenges this poses.
The work corporates are doing to streamline cash management processes should not end with SEPA implementation, says. Indeed, the principles and ideas underpinning SEPA can inform progress even in the most challenging markets.
New regulations requiring financial institutions to increase the amount of data fields they have on their customer records and swingeing fines imposed when processes and data are found to be inadequate have triggered an increased focus on data governance.
Trading firms are still struggling with the Dodd-Frank requirement for certain swaps to be traded on registered Swap Execution Facilities. According to a survey conducted by trading communications vendor IPC Systems, 60% of survey respondents said the industry as a whole was behind on meeting the deadlines on SEF trading, though only 39% said their […]
Despite the deep controversy created by Michael Lewis’ expose of HFT Flash Boys, global equity markets are not broken, according to a senior capital markets panel at Trade Tech Paris 2014.
US financial institutions are spending more on risk mitigation than ever before, according to a new study by post-trade services utility the DTCC.
Global standards and approaches to regulation need to focus more on removing risk from the financial system rather than on compliance – but to do so international regulators will need to harmonise their efforts and embrace technology to a much greater degree.
The number of central clearing counterparties is likely to rise in the near future as new entrants put Latin America, Africa and Australia on the map for OTC derivatives clearing, but with more regulatory intervention expected and unpredictable customer flows, the new venues face an uncertain future
Broadridge Financial Solutions has formed an alliance with UK software developer Lombard Risk Management under which Lombard’s collateral management system will be integrated into Broadridge’s applications and infrastructure services.
A group of major international banks have agreed to jointly develop and use the centralised Know Your Customer Registry announced by Swift at the start of the year.
Until the world has a definitive Legal Entity Identifier, we are going to have to recognise that piecemeal adoption brings with it significant hidden costs in validating, enriching and mapping for regulatory purposes. If the total number of registered market participants is meant to include all the corporates that trade FX forwards, we are far short.
Swift has announced the availability of a cloud-based application designed to eases the client onboarding process between financial institutions and their clients. First outlined at the Sibos 2012 event in Osaka, the MyStandards Readiness Portal, is backed by some big names in the business – HSBC, Citi and Clearstream spoke at a Standards Forum session […]
In the wake of scandals involving manipulation of market indices, can statistical learning theory be used to detect and fix anomalies in Libor and other market indices?
The Basel principles for effective risk management offer a chance to transform information management that should not be missed.
The International Swaps and Derivatives Association has set a date for the first stage of sweeping changes to the ISDAFIX benchmark for annual swap rates, as part of a major global push to clean up rates and make them more accountable.
Senior transaction banking executives have called for a political discussion to resolve the issue of emerging market access to banking services caused by the reduction of the correspondent banking services network.
Regulation is driving a structural shift away from capital markets and investment banking towards transaction banking – but even this hint of opportunity could be under threat, according to senior financial services panellists speaking at the BAFT IFSA conference in London this week.
Major global banks need to grasp social networks, cloud computing, user-generated content, personalisation, contextual information and gamification if they are to maintain a competitive edge and stay connected with customers. But they also need to ensure their innovations are transmitted thoroughly to all employees, according to panellists at the BAFT IFSA conference in London on Monday.
The financial services sector may be heavily regulated, but it is poorly standardised. A British Standards Institute-led initiative to drive more adoption of voluntary standards could reap considerable benefits for the industry.
The rising cost of KYC at global banks is threatening to disconnect smaller regional banks and even entire countries, according to Joachim von Hänisch, head of Swiss start-up company KYC Exchange, which plans to launch next Wednesday.
Swift has created a dedicated Financial Compliance Services unit to manage a growing number of service offerings. The new unit will focus initially on the development of a Know Your Customer Registry planned for launch later this year as well as the integration and development of existing services.
With regulators agreeing that “higher expectations” must be met by G-SIFIs for risk data aggregation and reporting by 2016, firms are now under huge pressure to provide data strategies and implementation plans and end denial about any shortcomings.
The International Organisation of Securities Commissions has set out its final recommendations on the integrity and efficiency of markets, calling for regulators to think deeply about the effects of their regulation and keep monitoring the markets regularly to ensure that changes are taken into account.
