Sanctioned Securities Creating New Woes for ETFs Data vendor SIX reports that the “number of securities tainted by sanctions has increased by 262 percent since the Ukraine war began in February 2022,” which creates a new set of operational problems for buy and sell-side firms especially those working in exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The discovery stems… Read More >>
HSBC Pays $75M to Resolve Swaps Violations Charges
HSBC is writing checks to the CFTC totaling $75 million via the resolution of two of the regulator’s orders — one involving alleged swaps transaction violations and a $45 million penalty, and the other based on charges of recordkeeping and supervisory failures that incurred a $30 million penalty. The swaps order encompasses allegations that HSBC… Read More >>
FTF Unveils Winners of the 2023 FTF Awards
With nods to established players and voter enthusiasm for other providers hitting their stride, Financial Technologies Forum (FTF) has unveiled the winners of the 2023 FTF News Technology Innovation Awards competition. The 30 winners of the FTF Awards competition — now in its 12th year — are being honored for achievements during 2022. “It’s not… Read More >>
TPG Buys Angelo Gordon for $2.7B & Other News
TPG-Angelo Gordon’s Combined AUM Is $208 Billion Private equity asset manager TPG Inc. is acquiring Angelo Gordon, a $73 billion credit and real estate investment firm via a cash and equity transaction valued at approximately $2.7 billion, officials say. Acquiring Angelo Gordon “marks a significant expansion into credit investing for TPG, establishing additional levers to… Read More >>
Templum Brings Trading Technology to Securitized Artwork: Q&A
(Editor’s note: Earlier this month, Templum, a provider of capital markets infrastructure technology for alternatives and private securities, reported that it had a new client — Masterworks LLC. The new client is an alternative investment platform for buying and trading shares in works of art that are often worth millions. Masterworks, which finds and then… Read More >>
Scotiabank & HSBC Fined for Recordkeeping & Phone Woes
Using a mobile phone can get pricey if you’re not careful. That’s a lesson two banks have learned the hard way, each paying multi-million dollar penalties for alleged “recordkeeping and supervision failures for widespread use of unapproved communication methods.” The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has filed and settled charges against the Bank of… Read More >>
N.Y. Attorney General Wants New Crypto Regulations
New York Attorney General Letitia James is no stranger to controversy and to major legal forays such as her recently proposed legislation, described as “the strongest and most comprehensive set of regulations” in the U.S. to govern cryptocurrency markets. The proposed legislation, the Crypto Regulation, Protection, Transparency & Oversight (CRPTO) Act, would give James more… Read More >>
Solve the SSI Issue Once & For All: Q&A
(Editor’s note: It looks as if industry veteran Bill Meenaghan, founder and CEO of SSImple, a fintech startup is on a mission to resolve the “age-old” problem of manually-based Standard Settlement Instruction (SSI) systems via distributed ledger technology (DLT). Meenaghan, who has more than 20 years of financial services experience, the relatively new company want… Read More >>
DLT Meets Standing Settlement Instructions & Other News
London Startup Takes on SSI Problems It’s a case of distributed ledger technology (DLT) meeting standing settlement instructions (SSIs), according to a London-based newcomer that developed SSImple, a post-trade, DLT platform offered on a software as a service (SaaS) basis. SSImple, also the name of the company, was built via R3’s distributed application platform Corda, officials… Read More >>
Goldman Sachs Settles Gender Bias Case for $215M
Goldman Sachs and the law firms representing 2,800 women — Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, and Outten & Golden — announced that they have resolved a gender discrimination class action lawsuit for $215 million, ending a legal action that began in 2010 and would have gone to trial next month, officials say. A lawyer for… Read More >>
