Nearly two years ago, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) unveiled major changes to the way that securities-trading firms can advertise under the Investment Advisers Act, and the “Modernized Marketing Rule” reforms take effect Friday, Nov. 4. However, the mandated changes will require “significant time and resource investment from firms,” says Bill Simpson, compliance principal… Read More >>
Credit Suisse Settles Great Recession Case for $495M
The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office has reached a $495 million “settlement in principle” with Credit Suisse to resolve “allegations of fraud and deceit in the sale of the toxic mortgage-backed securities,” that fueled the 2008 financial crisis. For those who might have forgotten: That was the financial crisis that rocked Wall Street at the… Read More >>
UMR May End DerivOps As We Know It
If your firm has not yet met the September 1 deadline for Phase 6 of the ongoing saga of the Uncleared Margin Rules (UMR), you are probably not reading this blog posting. You will be up to your ears in a gargantuan effort to meet the deadline or to find a legal way to sidestep… Read More >>
Form PF Gets an Overhaul via the SEC & CFTC
Form PF is experiencing growing pains after its first decade. Those firms that are required to use Form PF to report confidential information on private funds will be providing many more details if key amendments are ultimately adopted by both the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) The new… Read More >>
FINRA Fines Morgan Stanley for Faulty Research Reports
FINRA, the broker-dealer industry’s self-regulator, alleges that — in the space of less than one year — Morgan Stanley “published approximately 11,000 equity research reports that included price charts with inaccurate historical stock ratings.” Eleven thousand! Oops. FINRA hit the venerable firm, which traces its history back to 1935 and the advent of the Glass-Steagall… Read More >>
Google Cloud Tapped for Climate FinTech & Other News
MAS & Google Launch Climate FinTech Initiative The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Google Cloud report that they are launching an initiative “to drive the innovation, incubation, and scaling of climate FinTech solutions in Asia.” The Point Carbon Zero Program is “a collaboration under MAS’ Project Greenprint,” that will spur climate FinTech solutions to… Read More >>
BNY & Goldman Sachs Test Drive DLT & Other News
BNY & Goldman Sachs Pioneer DLT-Based Securities Financing BNY Mellon and Goldman Sachs have “completed the industry’s first agency securities lending transactions” via the distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform of HQLAᵡ , a financial technology vendor focused on securities finance and repo transactions. “As part of the combined series of 35-day term transactions with a… Read More >>
BNP Paribas Settles Swaps ‘Smoothing’ Case for $6M
Smoothing. It sounds like porn, and that’s because it is. Financial porn, that is. Here are the questions of the week: Is a six-million dollar penalty for “incorrectly reporting swaps and adjusted daily mark disclosures” enough of a hit to the nose that it will get an alleged wrongdoer’s attention? Or is six-million smackers simply… Read More >>
DTCC Report Hub Attracts 70+ Clients
More than 70 firms have signed up for a service that manages regulatory reporting requirements for 14 jurisdictions — the DTCC Report Hub — an offering of post-trade systems and services provider Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., officials say. In late 2020, the DTCC acquired a platform for compliance management reporting, dubbed the Compliance Management… Read More >>
National Securities Corp. Pays $9M to Settle FINRA Case
Clearly, FINRA, the brokerage industry’s self-regulatory authority, is not happy with the National Securities Corp. FINRA has ordered NSC to pay approximately $9 million, “including disgorgement of $4.77 million in net profits the firm received for underwriting 10 public offerings in which NSC attempted to artificially influence the market for the offered securities.” The firm neither confirms nor… Read More >>