Financial Technologies Forum (FTF) has unveiled the nominations for the 2024 FTF News Technology Innovation Awards competition, and the list of nominees reflects the dynamics of an industry facing digital transitions, a major effort to shorten settlement, and a final push to eliminate manual processes. The winners of the FTF Awards competition are chosen by… Read More >>
How to Survive the Recordkeeping Crackdown
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) December 2021 announcement that J.P. Morgan Securities LLC had been fined $125 million for allegedly violating the agency’s recordkeeping rules amounted to a shot heard up and down Wall Street. The market regulator made clear that it took breaches of recordkeeping regulations seriously, and that the J.P. Morgan penalty… Read More >>
Firms in NY State Brace for Cyberattacks
Today’s top headlines are about deadly shooting wars — in Israel, in Ukraine, and in far too many other places on the map. What will happen next is not known. But for financial services firms, the question of the day (and perhaps of the decade) is this: How do you secure the financial services industry,… Read More >>
Is Tokenized Gold the New Collateral?
(Anoushka Rayner, head of growth — commodities, at Paxos, maker of a regulated blockchain and tokenization infrastructure platform, wants financial services firms to think about how their dormant assets like gold could become collateral alternatives to the U.S. dollar. Paxos officials say that their system, which offers “multilateral payment netting and simultaneous settlement for the… Read More >>
UBS Settles RMBS Dispute with DOJ for $1.4B
Kumbaya at last? UBS AG and “several” of its United States-based affiliates have agreed to pay the United States Department of Justice $1.435 billion to settle their RMBS dispute, which dates to 2006-2007. In other words, just before the first rumblings of the Great Recession. Which was when we all learned that RMBS stands for… Read More >>
DTCC Shuts Down Its GMEI LEI Utility
The DTCC has confirmed to FTF News that it is shutting down its Global Markets Entity Identifier (GMEI) utility and leaving the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) services business by Aug. 22, and that the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) will assign current LEIs to new, accredited local operating units (LOUs) as part of a… Read More >>
Deutsche Bank Fined $186M for Money Laundering Woes
Deutsche Bank AG, its New York branch, and other U.S. affiliates have been fined $186 million by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System because the German banking giant moved too slowly to resolve allegedly inadequate sanctions compliance and anti-money laundering (AML) controls, officials say. The Fed’s fine, consent order, and written agreement… Read More >>
FINRA Expels Firm on Multiple ‘Reg BI’ Charges
Broker-dealer Monmouth Capital Management has been expelled by the self-regulatory organization FINRA, which cites a long list of alleged violations led by excessive trading of client accounts that was not rectified despite many red flags pointing to problems. “Monmouth has been a FINRA member since July 2018. The firm has one branch office located in… Read More >>
PIMCO Settles Disclosure & Procedure Case for $9M
Pacific Investment Management Company LLC (PIMCO) has agreed to a $9 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over two enforcement actions concerning alleged disclosure violations and policies and procedures woes directly related to two funds that the bond giant oversees. “In the first action, the SEC found that, from September 2014 to… Read More >>
Nasdaq Buys Adenza for $10.5 Billion
Nasdaq, known for its exchanges, will be securing its goal of becoming mostly a solutions provider with its just announced definitive $10.5 billion agreement to acquire Adenza — which is a combination of Calypso and AxiomSL — from private equity firm Thoma Bravo. Once authorities approve the $10.5 billion price tag, which consists of cash… Read More >>