The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposes to address cybersecurity risks to the financial services sector. Seems like a pretty good idea, doesn’t it? Maybe even overdue, given what we know about the intentions and actions of countries like Russia and China. The new cybersecurity rules would apply to “broker-dealers, the Municipal Securities… Read More >>
Voting Begins in the FTF Awards Competition!
We are pleased to announce that voting has begun for the nominees of the FTF News Technology Innovation Awards 2023, a competition overseen by Financial Technologies Forum (FTF) and the news service. Industry participants pick the winners. Voting began on March 20 when we officially unveiled the nominees and will end on April 28. We… Read More >>
UBS to Acquire Credit Suisse via Rescue Plan
In a stunning move, UBS announced on Sunday, March 19, that it will acquire for more than $3 billion the ailing Credit Suisse Group, making it part of UBS. Bank and Swiss authorities further outlined a rescue plan that will combine the former rivals into “a business with more than USD 5 trillion in total… Read More >>
SWIFT Tests API for CBDCs & Other News
SWIFT’s CBDC Connector Shows ‘Potential’ Officials at SWIFT, the global financial messaging services and systems cooperative, say that 18 central and commercial banks foresee “clear potential and value” in a connector for Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) based upon an application programming interface (API) that is SWIFT’s experimental solution for interlinking CBDCs. SWIFT reports that… Read More >>
Riding Out the Ripple Effects of the Bank Failures
The rapid collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, and the troubles swirling around First Republic Bank, which offers private banking and wealth management services, are technically happening separately from global securities markets. But actual regulatory and operational impacts and the contagion of panic are causing real ripple effects upon regulators, other banks, and… Read More >>
Swiss Central Bank Throws Credit Suisse a Lifeline
Credit Suisse Group will be borrowing $54 billion from the Swiss National Bank (SNB), the central bank for Switzerland, in an effort to stabilize its fiscal situation, which began spinning out of control at about the same time as Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in the U.S. collapsed. These parallel but essentially unrelated events have together… Read More >>
FINRA Fines Webull $3M on Customer Approval Woes
Exercising “reasonable due diligence” before approving customers for options trading: How hard is that? For that matter, how hard is it to maintain a supervisory system “reasonably designed to identify and respond to customer complaints?” And what about “not reporting certain written customer complaints to FINRA as required?” Taken together, those are the $3 million… Read More >>
Trading Technologies Buys AxeTrading & Other News
TT Boosts Fixed Income Outreach Trading Technologies International, Inc. (TT) reports that its multi-asset class expansion got a boost via its acquisition of London-based AxeTrading, a provider of fixed income trading solutions. The acquisition for an undisclosed amount is a move “into full coverage of corporate, government, municipal and emerging market bonds as well as… Read More >>
Firms Are Looking for T+1 Accelerators: Q&A
(Editor’s note: Last month, the SEC passed a set of amendments and new rules that make possible an industry-wide move from the current trading day plus two (T+2) settlement cycle to the shorter, one-day, T+1 time frame for U.S. equity markets. The SEC also endorsed a compliance date of May 28, 2024, for the start… Read More >>
FTX Insider Faces SEC & CFTC Charges Too
Attention, screenwriters: Sharpen your pencils. We’ve reached a key moment in the FTX saga! The US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and the Feds have turned their enforcement lasers on Nishad Singh, “the former co-lead engineer of FTX Trading Ltd. … for his role in a multiyear scheme to… Read More >>
