SEC Chair Gary Gensler says that the regulator must consider ways to protect investors vulnerable to the “Wild West” of cryptocurrencies, the trading and custody for crypto-based instruments, and the tokenization bandwagon. In remarks at the Aspen Security Forum on Aug. 3, Gensler noted that “the crypto asset class has ballooned. As of Monday [Aug…. Read More >>
$1B in Misused 1MDB Funds Returned to Malaysia
Justice Department Sends Back Misappropriated Funds U.S. Justice Department officials report that they have returned “an additional $452 million in misappropriated 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) funds to the people of Malaysia, bringing the total returned to over $1.2 billion.” The repatriation of the funds from the former 1MDB investment development fund follows a scandal in… Read More >>
NYFIX to Expand Post-Trade Services via Acquisition
Broadridge Buys Itiviti Partner Alpha Omega Broadridge Financial Solutions has acquired Alpha Omega, a post-trade solutions provider that uses the FIX electronic trading protocol, a move that will expand NYFIX’s post-trade services, officials say. Alpha Omega is a longtime partner of Itiviti, which itself is the result of the 2016 combination of NYFIX and Ullink. Broadridge… Read More >>
Middle Office Problems Spur Settlement Woes: Survey
Problems in middle-office operations are being blamed for back-office settlement failures, according to the results of a joint survey done by Torstone Technology, a vendor of cloud-based, post-trade services, and GreySpark Partners, a capital markets consultancy. In fact, the survey finds that “60 percent of institutions believe that settlement failures attributed to inadequacies of the… Read More >>
NSCC Automates Collateral Management for ETFs
NSCC Also Adds Support for Fixed Income ETFs National Securities Clearing Corp. (NSCC) officials report that they have launched an automated solution to make the collateral management process for exchange-traded funds (ETFs) more efficient. The changes to this mostly manual process also include new support for fixed income ETF capabilities. “The new NSCC solution fully… Read More >>
Broadridge Buys J&J Unit to Bolster RegTech Services
Broadridge Financial Solutions is bolstering its regulatory compliance services for broker-dealers via an acquisition of the cloud-based Execution Compliance and Surveillance Service (ECS) assets of Wall Street consultancy Jordan & Jordan (J&J), officials say. J&J officials describe their ECS offering as a managed service that includes “comprehensive reviews to assess compliance with various aspects of… Read More >>
Equiti to Use FlexTrade’s FX Platform MaxxTrader
MaxxTrader to Bolster Equiti’s Prime Services Equiti, an online trading technology provider, will be using the MaxxTrader foreign exchange platform from FlexTrade Systems as the basis for its prime of prime services offering, officials say. MaxxTrader will help Equiti provide its prime of prime customers with “global FX liquidity aggregation, trade execution management, and institutional… Read More >>
RJO Relaunches & Fills President’s Post
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 >>
Neovest Charged with Acting as an Unregistered Broker
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPMC) will be paying a $2.75 million penalty to settle SEC allegations that its Neovest subsidiary was acting as an unregistered broker-dealer for more than a decade in addition to its role as an order and execution management system (OEMS) vendor. This case marks the first time that the SEC has penalized… Read More >>
SEC Penalizes Guggenheim via Whistleblower Suppression Case
Managers at Guggenheim Securities, LLC, a New York City-based unit of Chicago-based Guggenheim Partners, a securities broker-dealer, and investment advisory, attempted to violate whistleblower rules, according to charges filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The result: The SEC has slapped a cease-and-desist order and a $208,912 penalty on Guggenheim Securities. Guggenheim Securities has… Read More >>
