HSBC, Visible Alpha, SIX, CQG & NFX also have FinTech news.
SEC Focuses On Foreign Affiliates of Auditors
The SEC has charged foreign affiliates of KPMG, Deloitte & Touche, and BDO for “their involvement in audit work that circumvented the full oversight of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).”
The auditors have settled the charges by paying penalties or disgorging their profits from the audits, the SEC says.
According to the SEC, the Zimbabwe affiliates of Deloitte & Touche and KPMG “improperly audited the majority of assets and revenues of a publicly traded company without registering with the PCAOB. The two principal auditors — KPMG’s affiliate in South Africa and BDO’s Canadian affiliate – were registered with the PCAOB but improperly relied upon the work of the two unregistered foreign component auditors to complete their audits of the company. This violated PCAOB standards requiring sufficient analysis and inquiry when using the work of another auditor.”
“It’s in the best interest of Main Street investors that all firms substantially involved in the audit of a public company are properly registered with the PCAOB so they are subject to the oversight necessary to ensure accuracy and prevent fraud,” Scott W. Friestad, associate director of the SEC’s division of enforcement, says in a statement.
The auditors neither admit nor deny the findings.
Nonetheless, BDO Canada has agreed to pay a $50,000 penalty, KPMG in South Africa has agreed to pay a $100,000 penalty, Deloitte in Zimbabwe has agreed to pay disgorgement and interest totaling $99,057, and KPMG in Zimbabwe has agreed to pay disgorgement and interest totaling $141,305, per the SEC.
HSBC Invests in Visible Alpha
HSBC is investing in Visible Alpha, an investment research technology vendor founded by some of the world’s leading investment banks, officials say.
The new investment follows an investment round earlier this year when Visible Alpha raised $38 million via Goldman Sachs, Banco Santander, Exane BNP Paribas, Macquarie Group, Royal Bank of Canada and Wells Fargo, and additional investment from Visible Alpha’s founding investors, Bank of America, Citi, Jefferies, Morgan Stanley and UBS, officials say.
Visible Alpha is using the investment proceeds to help its clients “meet the research valuation and budgeting requirements of MiFID II,” officials say. “More than 450 research providers are now actively participating on the platform, along with over 100 buy-side firms with a combined AUM of $16 trillion. In addition to investing in Visible Alpha, HSBC will be adding its research analyst models to the Visible Alpha Insights platform and contributing to Visible Alpha Consensus Data.”
SIX Adds 15 Million KIDS Regulatory Documents
SIX reports that its regulatory data platform has added more than 15 million key information documents (KIDs) “two months on” from the implementation of the European Union’s rules for Packaged Retail and Insurance-based Investment Products (PRIIPs).
“Since the rules came into force on the 1st of January, SIX has been adding roughly 1 million new PRIIP KIDs, documents designed to give end investors clearer insight into complex retail and insurance products, per week,” the vendor says, noting that to be compliant with PRIIPS, “investment firms need to provide vast amounts of data on client risk profiles and credit ratings, as well as past performance and cost allocations.”
SIX characterizes itself as operating the “infrastructure underpinning the Swiss financial sector and offers a comprehensive range of services around the world in the fields of securities trading and settlement, financial information and payment transactions. The company is owned by its users (approximately 130 banks of various orientation and size).”
CQG Partners with Nasdaq Futures
CQG, Inc., a provider of tools for trading, market data, and technical analysis, reports a new partnership with Nasdaq Futures (NFX), a futures exchange, intended to “provide a trading solution for clients trading NFX products,” the partners say in a statement.
NFX traders now will have lower execution rates — “often 50 percent less than incumbent energy exchanges — without any CQG execution fees,” according to the statement.
“Nasdaq is committed to building the futures market of tomorrow. That’s why we’ve partnered with CQG to create a solution for clients that offers best-in-class technology at a lower cost,” Rick Beaman, vice president and head of Nasdaq Futures, says in the statement.
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