The goalpost for the move by U.S. equities markets from T+2 to the shorter T+1 settlement cycle has shifted from 2023 to the first half of 2024 after an outreach to the industry revealed that more time was needed to revamp and test systems, workflows, and operations to facilitate this fundamental change to securities transaction processing…. Read More >>
Wall Street Mulls Key Pandemic Post-Trade Lessons
Some observers on Wall Street are saying that the global pandemic may be heading toward an end phase. I hesitate to agree with that prediction given the many unexpected riptides that the potentially fatal COVID-19 virus has imposed upon the world since its onset in 2020 (or even sooner). So, while we hope that the… Read More >>
Firms Suffer via Ops Expenses Blind Spot: Report
Lackluster investment in post-trade processes has caused an information blackout that prevents financial services firms from getting an enterprise-wide view of the money that has been spent on brokerage, custodian, exchange, and clearing services, and this weakness is taking a toll on profits, according to a new report from Meritsoft, a post-trade process automation services… Read More >>
DTCC Moves Ahead with DLT-Based Settlement Platform
The DTCC is moving ahead with its alternative securities settlement platform —the Project Ion initiative — based upon distributed ledger technology (DLT) after “a successful prototype pilot” with market participants, officials say. The prototype pilot showed that DLT could support the shorter settlement cycles of trading day plus one (T+1) and settlement on the trading… Read More >>
Corporate Actions Ops Are Stuck in Manual: Survey
But Firms Want Real-Time Corporate Actions Data A new report based on survey results reveals that slightly more than “three-quarters of respondents (78 percent) still process part of their corporate actions manually, with 40 percent processing more than half of their corporate actions in this way,” according to research sponsored by data and infrastructure services… Read More >>
$1B in Misused 1MDB Funds Returned to Malaysia
Justice Department Sends Back Misappropriated Funds U.S. Justice Department officials report that they have returned “an additional $452 million in misappropriated 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) funds to the people of Malaysia, bringing the total returned to over $1.2 billion.” The repatriation of the funds from the former 1MDB investment development fund follows a scandal in… Read More >>
Merrill Lynch Pays $11M+ to Settle UIT Case
FINRA, the self-regulatory authority for broker-dealers, has fined Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. $3.25 million for “failing to reasonably supervise” early unit investment trust rollovers. In addition to the fine, the firm will be paying $8.4 million in restitution to “harmed” customers. In the usual formulation, Merrill Lynch neither confirms nor denies the… Read More >>
Crypto Undermines SEC’s Mission: Sen. Elizabeth Warren
Sen. Warren Urges SEC to Consider Crypto Regs Wall Street critic U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is asking Gary Gensler, the chair of the SEC, via a recent letter, to investigate the ways that cryptocurrency exchanges “may be undermining the SEC’s mission” as a regulator of securities trading markets. The letter from Warren, who is… Read More >>
FNZ Can Have GBST’s Post-Trade Wares: CMA
The FNZ-GBST acquisition saga may be entering its final act as the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the U.K. has reaffirmed its initial findings that their continued merger would reduce competition in the retail investment platform solutions space. This time around, though, the CMA has suggested that FNZ, a wealth management technology and investment… Read More >>
Firm Fined for Alleged Regulation SHO Violations
FINRA, the financial industry’s self-regulatory authority, has charged Wolverine Execution Services with “inaccurately marking sell orders as long rather than short in 18,756 instances.” The firm, based in Chicago, also failed to “document compliance with the locate requirement in 556,388 instances during February 2018,” according to FINRA. Wolverine Execution Services, a subsidiary of Wolverine Trading,… Read More >>
