A working group consisting of key U.S. financial services authorities will be gathering over the coming months to investigate “an initial set of findings and recommendations” toward a central bank digital currency (CBDC) or “digital dollar” for the U.S., says Nellie Liang, under secretary for domestic finance for the Treasury Department. The CBDC Working Group… Read More >>
CFTC Mandates UPIs for Swaps Records & Reporting
Without much fanfare, the CFTC in mid-February ordered registered entities and swap counterparties to use the unique product identifiers (UPIs) supplied by the Derivatives Service Bureau (DSB) for swaps in the credit, equity, foreign exchange, and interest rate asset classes to bolster transparency and compliance with CFTC swap recordkeeping and reporting requirements. In addition, the… Read More >>
Canadian Regulators Push for CDOR’s Exit & Other News
Expiration Date Coming for CDOR It’s the beginning of the end for the LIBOR-based, Canadian Dollar Offered Rate (CDOR) as the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) are urging market participants to move away from the CDOR benchmark. The CSA is “the council of securities regulators of Canada’s provinces and territories, coordinates and harmonizes regulation for the… Read More >>
New York’s Attorney General Takes On CoinEx
‘Oops!’ isn’t good enough. There are consequences if you don’t follow the rules. That goes for crypto too. The Empire State’s Attorney General has sued a cryptocurrency platform “for failing to register as a securities and commodities broker-dealer and for falsely representing itself as a crypto exchange.” A.G. Letitia James alleges CoinEx, the cryptocurrency exchange… Read More >>
ESG Spurs Wolters Kluwer to Combine Four Divisions
Wolters Kluwer will combine four global enterprise software businesses into a new division, dubbed Corporate Performance & ESG, because environmental, social, and governance solutions are driving growth for the provider of professional information, software solutions, and services, officials say. In March, these four software businesses will be combined: CCH Tagetik (including U.S. Corporate Tax): Corporate… Read More >>
Reporter’s Notebook: The SEC Stops Kraken’s Staking Service
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reports that it has charged Payward Ventures, Inc. and Payward Trading Ltd., both commonly known as the crypto exchange Kraken, with “failing to register the offer and sale of their crypto asset staking-as-a-service program, whereby investors transfer crypto assets to Kraken for staking in exchange for advertised… Read More >>
QUODD Acquires Xignite and Other News
QUODD to Get 500 Market Data APIs from Xignite QUODD, a cloud-native provider of market data on demand, has acquired Xignite, a San Mateo, Calif.-based provider of financial market data application programming interfaces (APIs), which will allow QUODD to offer more than 500 market data (APIs), encompassing millions of instruments across all asset classes, officials… Read More >>
Iress & Centroid Craft Market Data Links for Brokers
Financial systems connectivity vendor Centroid Solutions reports that it is offering retail brokers new, cost-effective market data connections by integrating a key Centroid offering with application programming interfaces (APIs) from software and systems provider Iress. The new links bring the real-time pricing of exchange-traded products and related transactions to Centroid’s client base, officials say. The… Read More >>
FTF & the VX Launch the FTF Research Institute!
FTF officially launched the FTF News service on Valentine’s Day 2011, and I’m happy to say that 12 years later, we are still going strong. Perhaps for the sake of inviting good luck, on Valentine’s Day 2023, FTF and the ValueExchange (the VX) officially launched the FTF Research Institute, formed through a new partnership with… Read More >>
UBS Securities Hit With Another FINRA Fine
UBS Securities, a subsidiary of the world’s largest private bank, is in trouble with FINRA, the brokerage industry’s self-regulatory organization (SRO). It’s not the first time. From the regulatory authority’s customary Letter of Acceptance, Waiver and Consent (AWC), FINRA alleges: “From September 2015 through January 2019, UBS-S published inaccurate monthly statistics regarding execution of covered… Read More >>