Nearly one-quarter or 22 percent of FINRA member firms have volunteered to participate in a pilot program that would allow them to complete their inspection obligations “without an on-site visit” from a FINRA official, according to the self-regulatory organization (SRO) for U.S. broker-dealers. FINRA notes that 741 firms are participating in the initial pilot, and… Read More >>
FIA Updates Best Practices for Credit Risk Mitigation
Post-trade controls, monitoring, and data collection are essential to mitigate the risk involved in the automation of exchange-traded futures, options, and centrally cleared derivatives. With the help of updated best practices, these controls can work well in conjunction with pre-trade controls to prevent credit events or unintended transactions. So says the Futures Industry Association (FIA)… Read More >>
FINRA Warns of Post-CrowdStrike Secondary Attacks
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) officials have issued a warning that the global disruption caused by the CrowdStrike Outage could be followed by secondary attacks. “In connection to the widespread disruption, member firms should be aware they may experience secondary attacks from cyber criminals seeking to leverage this incident to carry out social engineering and… Read More >>
SEC Launches Interagency Effort to Bolster Enforcement
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement has launched the Interagency Securities Council (ISC) to better coordinate enforcement among federal, state, and local agencies, SEC officials say. The ISC will involve representatives from “more than 100 departments and agencies, including federal agencies, state offices of attorneys general and state police, and local police departments… Read More >>
Global Relay Links to OpenAI’s ChatGPT API
Global Relay, a provider of communications compliance solutions, is embracing a generative artificial intelligence (A.I.) technology provider to help its financial services clients, officials say. For instance, the self-regulatory organization (SRO) Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has requirements for overseeing A.I. chatbot communications, “mandating that AI-driven communications must adhere to the same supervision, content, and… Read More >>
Can a Proposed Standard Stop SSI Failures?
Standard Settlement Instructions (SSIs) are important for securities transactions because they specify the location for delivery after execution. However, SSIs cause a high rate of failures at the settlement stage, and the Financial Markets Standards Board (FMSB) is taking steps to rectify the situation. The ongoing use of “manual SSI exchanges, which are prone to… Read More >>
Achieve T+1 Harmony with U.S. Before E.U.: Task Force
The investment management industry believes that the U.K. being out of sync with the T+1 settlement of the U.S. is a bigger problem than with the European Union, and the U.K. needs to get its “skates on” with implementation. That’s according to Andrew Douglas, chair of the U.K. Accelerated Settlement Task Force (AST), which advocates… Read More >>
The SEC Has Contingencies After Supreme Court Loss
If major media organizations even bothered to cover the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-to-3 decision against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on June 27, the initial takeaway was that the regulatory agency suffered a massive blow to its abilities to take legal action in civil cases, particularly anti-fraud cases. But that might be too dire… Read More >>
CFTC Pays $8M to Insider Whistleblower
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) reports that it recently rewarded an insider whistleblower with more than $8 million for providing “significant information and assistance that led the CFTC and other agencies to bring multiple enforcement actions.” In fact, the whistleblower “helped the CFTC establish that one or more derivatives market participants deceived clients about… Read More >>
T+1: No Victory Until Affirmations Reach 100%
As many teams in North America canceled their weekly T+1 transition meetings, Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler has called on the U.K. to trigger its own implementation. Top of the list of lessons to learn from North America’s transition, Gensler said, is setting a date. “Until you do that, it is a lot… Read More >>
