Exercising “reasonable due diligence” before approving customers for options trading: How hard is that? For that matter, how hard is it to maintain a supervisory system “reasonably designed to identify and respond to customer complaints?” And what about “not reporting certain written customer complaints to FINRA as required?” Taken together, those are the $3 million… Read More >>
Trading Technologies Buys AxeTrading & Other News
TT Boosts Fixed Income Outreach Trading Technologies International, Inc. (TT) reports that its multi-asset class expansion got a boost via its acquisition of London-based AxeTrading, a provider of fixed income trading solutions. The acquisition for an undisclosed amount is a move “into full coverage of corporate, government, municipal and emerging market bonds as well as… Read More >>
Firms Are Looking for T+1 Accelerators: Q&A
(Editor’s note: Last month, the SEC passed a set of amendments and new rules that make possible an industry-wide move from the current trading day plus two (T+2) settlement cycle to the shorter, one-day, T+1 time frame for U.S. equity markets. The SEC also endorsed a compliance date of May 28, 2024, for the start… Read More >>
FTX Insider Faces SEC & CFTC Charges Too
Attention, screenwriters: Sharpen your pencils. We’ve reached a key moment in the FTX saga! The US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and the Feds have turned their enforcement lasers on Nishad Singh, “the former co-lead engineer of FTX Trading Ltd. … for his role in a multiyear scheme to… Read More >>
Treasury Working Group to Explore a Digital Dollar
A working group consisting of key U.S. financial services authorities will be gathering over the coming months to investigate “an initial set of findings and recommendations” toward a central bank digital currency (CBDC) or “digital dollar” for the U.S., says Nellie Liang, under secretary for domestic finance for the Treasury Department. The CBDC Working Group… Read More >>
CFTC Mandates UPIs for Swaps Records & Reporting
Without much fanfare, the CFTC in mid-February ordered registered entities and swap counterparties to use the unique product identifiers (UPIs) supplied by the Derivatives Service Bureau (DSB) for swaps in the credit, equity, foreign exchange, and interest rate asset classes to bolster transparency and compliance with CFTC swap recordkeeping and reporting requirements. In addition, the… Read More >>
Canadian Regulators Push for CDOR’s Exit & Other News
Expiration Date Coming for CDOR It’s the beginning of the end for the LIBOR-based, Canadian Dollar Offered Rate (CDOR) as the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) are urging market participants to move away from the CDOR benchmark. The CSA is “the council of securities regulators of Canada’s provinces and territories, coordinates and harmonizes regulation for the… Read More >>
New York’s Attorney General Takes On CoinEx
‘Oops!’ isn’t good enough. There are consequences if you don’t follow the rules. That goes for crypto too. The Empire State’s Attorney General has sued a cryptocurrency platform “for failing to register as a securities and commodities broker-dealer and for falsely representing itself as a crypto exchange.” A.G. Letitia James alleges CoinEx, the cryptocurrency exchange… Read More >>
ESG Spurs Wolters Kluwer to Combine Four Divisions
Wolters Kluwer will combine four global enterprise software businesses into a new division, dubbed Corporate Performance & ESG, because environmental, social, and governance solutions are driving growth for the provider of professional information, software solutions, and services, officials say. In March, these four software businesses will be combined: CCH Tagetik (including U.S. Corporate Tax): Corporate… Read More >>
Reporter’s Notebook: The SEC Stops Kraken’s Staking Service
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reports that it has charged Payward Ventures, Inc. and Payward Trading Ltd., both commonly known as the crypto exchange Kraken, with “failing to register the offer and sale of their crypto asset staking-as-a-service program, whereby investors transfer crypto assets to Kraken for staking in exchange for advertised… Read More >>
