February 2013 By Adam Perrotta, Assistant Editor Dozens of prepaid program managers are scrambling to find a new bank issuer with First California Bank (FCB) exiting the issuing business ahead of its acquisition by PacWest Bancorp. In November, PacWest agreed to pay $231 million for FCB’s parent company, Westlake Village, Calif.-based First California Financial […]
Recovery and resolution plans have been on the minds (and to-do lists) of ops and tech departments at the world’s biggest banks ever since they were mandated by the G20 in 2011.
On February 28, most of the approximately 70 registered swap dealers will stumble across the finishing line for the remaining asset classes of the CFTC implementation of Dodd-Frank trade reporting regulations. Some may be forgiven for breathing a sigh of relief.
As the global method of identifying entities and their ownership structures, the Legal Entity Identifier forms a central part of the G20’s crisis-prevention toolbox. After a few chaotic years of LEI debate and design, regulators are finally nearing the long anticipated starting line for use of the world’s first singular identifier.
2012 seemed like the year of regulators taking a prolonged look at computer trading – defining what it might be, its potential effects, why it may be problematic. It is still far from clear that we have answers to these fundamental questions.
As new rules for the reporting of OTC derivatives draw closer around the globe, US post-trade services utility the DTCC is positioning itself as the provider of a global network of trade repositories – but OTC derivatives reform will only work if consistent measures are taken everywhere, says Stewart Macbeth, president and chief executive at the DTCC.
Regulatory data collection tools have been refined, standardised identifiers nearly constructed and more frequent and granular reporting rolled into regulation. Now that regulators have this mass of data, what is the next step in linking it and putting it to use?
Market data and technology company Activ Financial has expanded its risk gateway tool to cover all Canadian exchanges, ahead of new rules that will require market participants in Canada to have pre-trade risk controls in place across all asset classes from next month.
OTC derivatives trade processing service MarketSERV and banking technology provider Misys have partnered to create a service for CCP clearing of FX derivatives trades.
Germany’s Commerzbank has adopted a visual transaction signing tool from British security firm Cronto for its online banking customers, designed to protect against Trojan malware.
Just a day after Osborne vowed to drag the UK payments systems into the 21st century by, er, improving cheque clearing times, a ceremony dating back to the 12th century was getting underway in the City of London.
The imposition of an £8 million fine against defunct Canadian day trading firm Swift Trade earlier this week illustrates the potential for abusive strategies that distort markets – and the need for a new approach from regulators, according to Matthew Coupe, director of regulation and market structure at NICE Actimize.
New research from Experian shows that “only 65% of euro transactions have fully accurate destination routing data and 12% of electronic payments made to and from businesses in euros currently contain data errors”.
UK retail banks could be forced to share branch premises with rivals under plans to increase competition in the market, according to the chief executive of the UK’s Office of Fair Trading, Clive Maxwell.
Regulatory demands and improved profitability are fuelling a move to dynamic capital planning, but few banks have firm plans.
Conduct risk, which places emphasis on providers of credit to treat customers fairly, will challenge them to deliver higher standards of customer support across the whole relationship.
Four out of five financial institutions are not ready for new regulations governing the trading, reporting and clearing of OTC derivatives, according to a new survey by US communications company IPC.
US financial services regulators have not properly evaluated the impact of rules they have proposed or introduced in implementing the Dodd-Frank Act, and should improve their co-ordination says a critical report from a congressional watchdog.
The European Banking Authority has adopted a formal recommendation to push major EU cross-border banks into developing group recovery plans by the end of this year.
An alliance between central securities depositories in Germany, Spain, Brazil, South Africa and Australia aims to tackle the expected global shortfall in collateral arising from tough new financial regulation.
Far from coming out of a post-crisis period of grieving and re-learning how to engage with the wider world, the financial services industry looks like it is returning to its old belligerent self.
European regulators have until March to impose a code of conduct on banks contributing to the creation of the Euribor interbank lending rate benchmark. The deadline is included in recommendations published by the European Securities and Markets Authority and the European Banking Authority following their joint work on benchmark rate-setting processes in the wake of the Barclays Libor scandal and other rate-fixing revelations.
US exchange operator BATS Global Markets’ revelation earlier this week that it may have accidentally breached best execution regulation on thousands of client transactions over a four-year period has been criticised by senior buy-side traders, who have expressed disappointment at the failure of exchanges to serve long-term investors.
Citi has established a set of alliances with Clearstream and Euroclear Bank that it says will transform the way broker-dealers manage their collateral, freeing up precious resources as onerous new regulations in the US and Europe burden banks with tougher collateral requirements.
January 2013 By Jeremy T. Rosenblum and Stefanie H. Jackman, Ballard Spahr LLP The sky is not falling—at least yet. The ability of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to supervise smaller banks (less than $10 billion in assets) and other companies providing prepaid cards to consumers is currently limited. For participants in the […]
The recent market data glitch on US consolidated tape C, in which investors were unable to view Nasdaq-listed stocks, highlights the need for regulation on resilience, according to Frederic Ponzo, managing partner at capital markets consultancy GreySpark Partners.
Thomson Reuters has launched a tool to help financial institutions comply with the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, widely known as FATCA, which requires banks to identify their US customers for tax purposes.
As the European Commission prepares new rules that will reform Europe’s capital markets, buy-side market participants must be careful to ensure that they are not misunderstood and even side-lined by politicians in Brussels, warns David Morgan, director for trading and client connectivity, capital markets at financial technology provider SunGard.
Ernst & Young has developed new software designed to catch employees engaged in corporate wrongdoing, as Swiss bank Wegelin and Co prepares to cease operations following the firm’s prosecution for helping US citizens evade taxes.
The Futures Industry Association has appointed Allison Lurton as senior vice president and deputy general counsel, starting from 14 January.
January 2013 We wanted to start the year off with some perspective from industry thought leaders across the globe to find out what will shape prepaid and emerging payments in the new year. We asked several executives from a variety of companies as well as a few analysts to share their thoughts about what the […]
January 2013 By Bill Grabarek, Senior Editor If anyone thought last year couldn’t compare with the events of 2011, they quickly were proved wrong as 2012 turned out to be every bit as transformational. In the U.S. market, we saw a fledgling federal watchdog agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), go from crawling […]
Further clarification on the European Union’s Alternative Investment Fund Managers’ Directive, due to come into force in July next year, has been welcomed by the Alternative Investment Management Association, the global hedge fund association.
December 2012 By Adam Perrotta, Assistant Editor When MasterCard and global mobile carrier Telefónica joined forces to bring mobile financial services to 12 South American countries in early 2011, Richard Hartzell, president, Latin American and the Caribbean, MasterCard, said the initiative would help arm the card network with “the right artillery to strengthen our […]
Since the 2007 global financial crisis there has been a lot of debate on potential changes across the banking services industry and the potential consequences. Recent market surveys suggest that surprisingly little progress has been made in risk and compliance management and some lack of clarity as to what to do next. Reacting to regulatory change is one thing, but the real goal is to build clarity and confidence that banks are doing the right thing in the right way at the right time
The European Parliament has voted to approve the introduction of a financial transaction tax across 11 EU member states including France, Germany and Italy – but market participants warn that it may have unintended consequences.
The Financial Services Authority has instructed HSBC to set-up a board-level committee with a mandate to oversee matters relating to anti-money laundering, sanctions, terrorist financing and proliferation financing.
The Futures and Options Association has appointed former Financial Services Authority policy leader Natasha Stromberg as head of regulation, with core responsibility for working groups on energy, power, emissions, metals and other commodities-related areas.
