Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the CFTC has issued a Customer Advisory that is meant to serve as a warning for people who use online dating and social media platforms but get pulled into scams where they send money to “fraudulent websites that claim to trade foreign currency exchange (forex) contracts, precious metals contracts,… Read More >>
NY AG, Regulators Charge Safeguard Metals with Fraud
New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed suit against Safeguard Metals LLC, a precious metals company, and its owner and manager, Jeffrey S. Santulan, alleging that they defrauded investors, including many seniors, across New York and the United States. The lawsuit, originally filed by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and a bipartisan coalition… Read More >>
The Fed Is Starting to Think About CBDCs
The Federal Reserve is mulling what a digital currency backed by a central bank would look like. This should come as no surprise given the onset of blockchains and distributed ledger technology, and then cryptocurrencies and digital assets in many forms. They all have had an underlying driver – a disintermediation push to bring on… Read More >>
Crypto Crime Hits $14B in 2021: Report
Crypto investors beware. The good news: Crypto-crime is “becoming a smaller and smaller part of the cryptocurrency ecosystem.” That’s according to a blog post “preview” of the 2022 “Crypto Crime Report” from Chainalysis, a cloud-based, blockchain data and analysis platform provider founded in 2014 and headquartered in New York City. The not-so-good news: Crypto crime… Read More >>
CFTC’s First Chief Diversity Officer & More Briefs
CFTC Appointee Has 20 Years of Diversity Experience Tanisha Cole Edmonds has been appointed the CFTC’s first chief diversity officer and has been tasked with helping the agency advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) at all levels, officials say. Edmonds, who reports to Rostin Behnam, chairman of the CFTC, will oversee the Office of… Read More >>
Should the SEC & CFTC Create a Crypto Bureau?
Two of the major overseers of financial markets — the SEC and the CFTC — appear to be in a bureaucratic tug-of-war when it comes to the regulatory oversight of emerging digital assets, and former CFTC Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo is proposing that the agencies work together to co-create a crypto bureau. In addition, an… Read More >>
Senate Makes Behnam the New CFTC Chairman
Lost in the tsunami of federal government budget battle news is the welcome development that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has a new, official chairman — Rostin “Russ” Behnam, and that the stage has been set for a full roster of commissioners. On Dec. 16, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously to approve Rostin Behnam… Read More >>
JPMorgan Fined $200M for Skipping Digital Recordkeeping
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is paying a hefty $200 million in fines to the SEC and the CFTC on charges that it failed to retain and store trading-related digital communication records of staff members of JPMorgan Securities (JPMS), a broker-dealer subsidiary of the financial services giant. JPMorgan will be paying $125 million to the SEC… Read More >>
ICE Shakes Up NYSE’s Executive Team
December has always been full of surprises — good and bad — and the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the exchanges company that owns the New York Stock Exchange, has announced a slew of executive surprises this week for NYSE and ICE. In a press release and an accompanying letter from Jeff Sprecher, founder, chairman, and CEO… Read More >>
LCH Approved for Portfolio Margining of Swaps
CFTC Also Permits Security-Based Swaps Margining The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has approved a request by Banque Centrale de Compensation, doing business as LCH SA, to provide portfolio margining of swaps and security-based swaps in a cleared swaps customer account, officials say. “The order establishes terms and conditions under which LCH SA and its clearing members… Read More >>
