The multiple impacts of digital assets and the digitization of traditional assets got plenty of attention at the first in-person version of the Sibos conference since 2019 that got underway earlier this week in Amsterdam. Put on by the SWIFT cooperative, Sibos 2022 was expecting “nearly 10,000 participants,” according to officials. The conference sessions, which… Read More >>
Barclays Pays $361M to Settle Unregistered Securities Case
The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged that Barclays PLC and Barclays Bank PLC offered and sold “an unprecedented amount” of unregistered securities because of a “failure to implement any internal control to track such transactions in real time.” One result of that alleged failure is that both Barclays PLC and Barclays Bank PLC had… Read More >>
Kim Kardashian Faces Harsh Crypto Realities
A reality star is facing the harsh truths of the world of cryptocurrencies and digital assets, and the consequences of a busy regulator who is closely watching celebrities endorsing a garden variety of cryptocurrencies, tokens, and other digital assets as securities. The SEC has just settled with reality star Kim Kardashian “for touting on social… Read More >>
Deloitte-China & SEC Settle Auditing Woes Case for $20M
Who audits the auditors? The clients being audited? That doesn’t seem quite right, does it? In any case, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Certified Public Accountants LLP, better known as Deloitte-China, the Chinese affiliate of Deloitte’s network of accounting firms, with “failing to comply with fundamental U.S…. Read More >>
Overbond Launches A.I.-Based Margin Optimization & Other News
Overbond Adds A.I.-Based Functions to Trading Engine Overbond, a vendor focused on automation for credit trading, reports that it has added an artificial intelligence-based margin optimization function to its automated trading system to help sell-side, fixed income desks “optimize their hit ratio and increase the profitability of automated fixed income trading,” officials say. Currently, automated… Read More >>
Wall Street Slammed for Not Tracking Off-Channel Communication
The SEC and the CFTC have taken on major Wall Street firms and penalized them for alleged “widespread recordkeeping failures” and have gotten the firms to acknowledge their shortcomings and to pay penalties in the millions. The SEC alone has racked up $1.1 billion in penalties from 16 firms and the CFTC has settled charges… Read More >>
Can SWIFT Make Post-Trade Ops More Transparent?
SWIFT is strongly urging that the industry adopt Unique Transaction Identifiers (UTIs) as a way to bring more transparency to post-trade processing. The new UTI support would come via the SWIFT Securities View capability, which has had a successful pilot test, dubbed the “SWIFT Securities Tracking Pilot,” according to officials of the financial messaging, systems,… Read More >>
Data Disposal Case Spurs $35M Penalty for MSSB
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reports settling charges against Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC (MSSB) “stemming from the firm’s extensive failures, over a five-year period, to protect the personal identifying information, or PII, of approximately 15 million customers.” MSSB neither admits nor denies the charges. However, it has agreed to pay a $35 million… Read More >>
Nasdaq Launches a Digital Assets Business & Other News
Nasdaq Establishes a Custody Solution for Digital Assets Nasdaq reports the launch of a new business that it says will “power the digital asset ecosystem.” The new business “underpins Nasdaq’s ambition to advance and help facilitate broader institutional participation in digital assets by providing trusted and institutional-grade solutions, focused on enhanced custody, liquidity and integrity,”… Read More >>
Firms Must Capture Risky Communications: Q&A
(Gone are the days when financial services firms could tightly control contact between staff and clients and limit the behavior that facilitates transactions. But, in 2022, firms have to capture a growing list of digital interactions such as unified communication (UC) and web collaboration platforms such as the popular Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Symphony, and Cisco… Read More >>
