While I was hoping for more fireworks, the mutual fund giant Pacific Investment Management Company, a.k.a. PIMCO, quietly closed the William H. (Bill) Gross Departure chapter, which was the cause for a great deal of publicity and turmoil for Gross and the firm. To say the least, Gross and the firm he helped found have… Read More >>
What If Blockchain/DLT Lives Up to the Hype?
As this year gathers steam, the many blockchain/distributed ledger technology (DLT) projects out there are beginning to yield results. We have just reported on Northern Trust and its efforts with IBM http://bit.ly/2lSPlrw and I’m sure there are many more to come. One of the more intriguing DLT projects is the joint effort between the old… Read More >>
Revisit 2016 via the Top Stories of FTF News
Across the globe, the year 2016 ran the gamut from exhilarating to downright heartbreaking for many people on many, many fronts. For the executives, managers and great foot-soldiers of securities operations, it was a surprisingly eventful year that again underscored the importance of middle- and back-office people, systems and strategies. The year was full of… Read More >>
New OCC Group to Push FinTech Innovation
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) quietly let it be known that it is creating an office “dedicated to responsible innovation” that will build a formal framework to help the agency “identify, understand, and respond” to the growing number of FinTech changes impacting the federal banking system. Citing the exponential growth of… Read More >>
Why the Wells Fargo Mess Makes Wall Street Nervous
My guess is that the dizzying fall from grace for Wells Fargo Chairman and CEO John Stumpf is making some Wall Street executives a little nervous, especially if they have something to hide. To recap, after a scandal broke about the bank setting up fraudulent consumer accounts, the Wells Fargo board of directors decided this… Read More >>
A Break in a Major Hacking & Fraud Scheme
Earlier this month there was a development in one of the most ingenious hacking and securities fraud efforts in a long time — one that in theory would make for a great crime/thriller movie. To refresh your memory, we reported [ http://bit.ly/2bLHdUQ ] that in a major anti-fraud action, the SEC issued charges against 32… Read More >>
FTF Awards Nominations Close on February 5
Forget the glib Golden Globes, the scandal-ridden Oscars and the snooty awards by vicious film critics and please focus your attention on the FTF News Technology Innovation Awards 2016, presented by Financial Technologies Forum and its news arm. We were the first to put such a great spotlight on securities operations — others have tried… Read More >>
A Look Back at the Tops in Ops
It’s that time of year when FTF News pauses to review the top securities operations trends of great interest to our readership in the year that was 2015. It’s been a year in which major banks and other financial institutions were slammed with penalties by the regulators. Mergers and acquisitions were rampant among big industry… Read More >>
Will “The Big Short” Spawn New Wall Street Crooks?
A new movie, “The Big Short,” full of Hollywood heavyweights who might know what a derivative is, is getting a lot of Oscar buzz and some headlines that suggest it will make you mad all over again about the Great Recession. Paramount Pictures has slated a limited release for the movie for this Friday, Dec…. Read More >>
The Ongoing Woes of FCMs
Derivatives expert John P. Needham, president of Needham Consulting, alerted us more than a year ago at Financial Technology Forum’s DerivOps Chicago conference in April 2014 to the fact that 10 futures commission merchants (FCMs) are handling 75 percent of U.S. customer segregated funds…
