A U.K. regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), has imposed a fine of $14.8 million (£12,553,800) upon Citigroup’s international broker-dealer subsidiary for breaches of the Market Abuse Regulation (MAR), a law that requires firms to monitor orders and trades to detect potential market manipulation. The FCA charged the London-based Citigroup Global Markets Ltd. (CGML) with… Read More >>
DTCC’s ‘Project Ion’ Hits a Milestone & Other News
DLT System Settles 100,000 Transactions Per Day The DTCC’s alternative settlement platform based on blockchain/distributed ledger technology (DLT), Project Ion, has achieved a new threshold — it’s parallel processing more than 100,000 bilateral equity transactions daily and almost 160,000 transactions on peak days via the DTCC subsidiary, the Depository Trust Company (DTC). “The goal of… Read More >>
CFTC Ends LIBOR for IR Swaps & Other News
CFTC Amends & Ends LIBOR Usage The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has issued a final rule ending the requirement that interest rate swaps reference the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) in order to complete the clearing process — another milestone marking the end of the scandal-ridden LIBOR. The final rule modifies the CFTC’s… Read More >>
Two Ex-JPMorgan Traders Convicted for Market Manipulation
A federal jury in the Northern District of Illinois recently found two former precious metals traders at JPMorgan Chase & Co., guilty of fraud, attempted price manipulation, and spoofing via a precious metals futures contracts scheme that occurred over an eight-year period and encompassed “thousands of unlawful trading sequences,” authorities say. The two, now-convicted, ex-traders… Read More >>
Canada Puts Crypto-Trading Platforms on Notice
During this winter of discontent and falling values for the crypto world, many are waiting for the regulators in the U.S. and elsewhere to solidify the rules of the road. Industry participants are looking to SEC Chair Gary Gensler, the CFTC, the Fed, U.S. Senators, E.U. agencies, and multinational organizations to coordinate a response or… 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 >>
BlackRock Vet Joins Arcesium & Other News
Arcesium Hires from BlackRock Arcesium reports that it has hired the former commercial director for BlackRock’s Aladdin Data Cloud, Mahesh Narayan, to be the institutional asset manager segment head for the data management solutions vendor. Narayan will oversee Arcesium’s “cloud-native data platform, investment lifecycle solutions, and associated financial operations,” according to the official announcement. These… Read More >>
It’s Time to Check the T+1 Playbook
To say the least, the securities-trading industry has been a little busy since it shifted to a trading day plus two business days settlement (T+2) cycle in 2017. Yet, despite market volatility, disruptive technologies, epic political and social changes, a pandemic, soaring inflation, and an ongoing war in Europe, the industry-wide drive to an even… 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 >>
Buy-Side Demand for Analytics Is Surging: Q&A
(FTF News recently reached out to Abhik Pal, a senior director and global head of research practice at CRISIL Global Research and Risk Solutions, about the buy side’s needs for data analytics. Pal is one of the co-authors of a new report, “Unlocking Value in Data and Analytics,” that urges sell-side firms to adopt a… Read More >>
