UBS Group is paying $387 million in fines to the U.S. Federal Reserve System and the U.K.’s Prudential Regulation Authority and finalizing proceedings with the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) — in an effort to close the Archegos Capital Management chapter in the history of Credit Suisse, now a subsidiary of its former Swiss… 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 >>
Are We Heading Toward the Age of DLT?
I think it’s fair to say that distributed ledger technology (DLT), a.k.a. the blockchain, is making real inroads into the complex universe of post-trade securities operations. I am referring to the infrastructure-building/plumbing aspects of DLT, which emerged before its role in the wild embrace of crypto- and digital asset transactions, tokenization, etc. The DLT-based systems… Read More >>
A.I. Is On the Regulators’ Radar
Almost all facets of securities operations are investigating or even embracing cutting-edge technologies, particularly the extensions of artificial intelligence (A.I.) such as machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and deep learning. Many firms are also exploring how robotic process automation (RPA) may make their lives easier. But, as these advanced technologies become more prevalent, the… Read More >>
Are FCMs Going to Survive?
(Editor’s note: Are futures commission merchants (FCMs) headed for extinction? It’s a fair question as the number of them, 64 as of this past March, has dropped by more than 50 percent over the past 15 years — a key point made in a special report authored by Hester Peirce, director of the financial markets… Read More >>
JPMorgan to Exit Most Government Securities Settlement Services
JPMorgan is exiting its narrowly focused, government securities settlement services business, which includes Treasury and agency bonds, ending support for approximately 30 clients, bank officials confirm. The clients affected use the bank’s broker-dealer channel and JPMorgan then uses the Federal Reserve’s securities transfer system. While some news outlets recently reported that JPMorgan would be leaving… Read More >>
Glass-Steagall May Survive the U.S. Presidential Race
The major U.S. political party conventions to nominate Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton for president have been nothing if not colorful. Yet hidden among the balloons and confetti is the news that both political parties have more or less endorsed a return to the Glass-Steagall provision separating commercial and investment banking. Our first stop is… Read More >>
News Analysis: Bernie Sanders’ Wall Street Reforms Lack Specifics
On the campaign trail for the Democratic presidential nomination, candidate Bernie Sanders has been hammering away at Wall Street and its impact upon the economy, calling for the return of the Glass-Steagall Act, the breakup of large banks, and other reforms that he says go further than the Dodd-Frank Act. However, the proposed changes from… Read More >>
When Bernanke Faced the Panic
As the world waits breathlessly for the Federal Reserve to render a decision on interest rates, it’s probably a good time to look back to when things really did cause you to stop breathing for a second. That would be the Great Recession when it kicked in during the fall of 2008. On a recent… Read More >>
S&P May Cut Ratings for BofA, Citi, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley & Others
Eight major U.S. financial services firms may have another issue to worry about as ratings agency Standard & Poor’s is putting them on a watch list for ratings cuts because these firms may be affected by a proposed rule of the Federal Reserve ending bailouts for firms that are “too big to fail.” The eight… Read More >>
