Northern Trust Adds Four to Digital Consulting Group Northern Trust has appointed Benjamin Bobroff to head its new digital solutions consulting group, which is in its asset-servicing business development division. Northern Trust also has made three other senior appointments intended to support the “continued strategic focus and investment in digital innovation,” according to a prepared statement. The three will… Read More >>
UMR May End DerivOps As We Know It
If your firm has not yet met the September 1 deadline for Phase 6 of the ongoing saga of the Uncleared Margin Rules (UMR), you are probably not reading this blog posting. You will be up to your ears in a gargantuan effort to meet the deadline or to find a legal way to sidestep… Read More >>
Cooperation Helps Firms Beat Financial Crime: Report
Sometimes financial crime is as local as your neighborhood shyster promising crypto riches to gullible kids or unsophisticated old folks. That can be a tragedy for the people who are conned. Other times, though, financial crime is international, requiring cooperation between nation-states or between private financial organizations and public agencies. And international financial crime can… Read More >>
FCA Fines Citi Brokerage $15M for Surveillance Woes
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 >>
Is More Forgery the Trade-off for Digital Signatures?
Sometimes increased convenience comes with a cost. Case in point: digital signatures, which provide “significantly” easier and more efficient customer interactions. However, that increased ease apparently applies to forgers, too. Says FINRA: “The increasing use of digital documentation can significantly improve the ease and efficiency of customer interactions, but digital documentation also creates risks for… 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 >>
