RJO Promotes Staniford to President Chicago-based R.J. O’Brien & Associates (RJO), which is generally regarded as the oldest and largest independent futures brokerage and clearing firm in the United States, reports that Daniel Staniford has been named president. Staniford will “act on behalf of RJO and all of its global affiliates and related entities, including… Read More >>
Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative Hits a Milestone
On Tuesday, July 6, officials behind the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative reported that they have hit a milestone in just six months — they have 41 new signatories, meaning that “128 investors managing $43 trillion” have made a commitment to the goal of helping the world achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050…. Read More >>
Robinhood Pays $70M to Resolve FINRA Case
Self-regulatory organization (SRO) FINRA has fined online brokerage Robinhood Financial $57 million and required $12.6 million in restitution to investors allegedly harmed by the firm, which says that it has improved its platform stability, and neither admits nor denies the charges of the settlement. “The sanctions represent the largest financial penalty ever ordered by FINRA… Read More >>
Crypto Assets Mean Digital Ops for Hedge Funds
Over the next five years, hedge funds are on track for a greater embrace of crypto assets for their investments, and digital overhauls to manage cutting-edge securities operations, according to a survey released in late May by fund administration services provider Intertrust Group, based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The company surveyed 100 senior-level professionals at… Read More >>
Symphony Buys Cloud9 to Jolt Voice Trading
Symphony to Unite Voice Trading with NLP Symphony, a messaging and platform provider for trading firms, reports that it is trying to “tackle true pain points in markets’ workflows” via the acquisition of trader voice/electronic communication and analytics company Cloud9 Technologies. The acquisition will help Symphony “take the lead in front office communications with new… Read More >>
State Street Embraces A.I. for Private Markets Clients
State Street Corp. is hoping to provide private markets clients with faster access to their data, to digitize more of their reporting capabilities, and to enhance operations and document management via a combination of cloud computing and machine learning with the help of vendor Canoe Intelligence. By definition, machine learning “is the concept that a… Read More >>
DLT Meets Collateral Management via Partnership
CloudMargin & Ivno Bring DLT to Collateral & Margining CloudMargin, maker of a cloud-native collateral and margining solution, is working with Ivno, a financial markets tokenization vendor, to develop a collateral management solution that uses distributed ledger technology (DLT) and cloud computing, officials say. Their new strategic partnership will leverage Ivno’s DLT strengths and CloudMargin’s… Read More >>
FINRA Puts an Expiration Date on OATS
Self-regulatory organization, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) is quietly putting an expiration date of September 1, 2021, on the Order Audit Trail System (OATS) as the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) reaches a new level of reliability. In typical legalese, FINRA officials released the following Regulatory Notice 21-21: “Effective September 1, 2021, FINRA is amending… Read More >>
Do Regulators Need to Clarify CCO Liability?
“Regulators, compliance officers and the investing public would all benefit from the adoption of a framework for evaluating potential cases against chief compliance officers (CCOs) in the financial sector.” So says the New York City Bar Association, which has offered a proposal for doing just that. The proposal, a follow-up to the committee’s February 2020… Read More >>
T+1 Update: Feedback Will Determine Time Frame
The push to shorten the U.S. securities settlement cycle from T+2 to T+1 by 2023 is well into the information-gathering stage via private industry workshops that will decide the details of the time frame for the transition, which is expected to be announced during the last quarter of this year. The workshops are also helping… Read More >>
