BNY & Goldman Sachs Pioneer DLT-Based Securities Financing BNY Mellon and Goldman Sachs have “completed the industry’s first agency securities lending transactions” via the distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform of HQLAᵡ , a financial technology vendor focused on securities finance and repo transactions. “As part of the combined series of 35-day term transactions with a… Read More >>
BNP Paribas Settles Swaps ‘Smoothing’ Case for $6M
Smoothing. It sounds like porn, and that’s because it is. Financial porn, that is. Here are the questions of the week: Is a six-million dollar penalty for “incorrectly reporting swaps and adjusted daily mark disclosures” enough of a hit to the nose that it will get an alleged wrongdoer’s attention? Or is six-million smackers simply… Read More >>
DTCC Report Hub Attracts 70+ Clients
More than 70 firms have signed up for a service that manages regulatory reporting requirements for 14 jurisdictions — the DTCC Report Hub — an offering of post-trade systems and services provider Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., officials say. In late 2020, the DTCC acquired a platform for compliance management reporting, dubbed the Compliance Management… Read More >>
National Securities Corp. Pays $9M to Settle FINRA Case
Clearly, FINRA, the brokerage industry’s self-regulatory authority, is not happy with the National Securities Corp. FINRA has ordered NSC to pay approximately $9 million, “including disgorgement of $4.77 million in net profits the firm received for underwriting 10 public offerings in which NSC attempted to artificially influence the market for the offered securities.” The firm neither confirms nor… Read More >>
Ad Campaign Exposes SEC’s Sense of Humor
Move over, “Jeopardy,” “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” “The Price is Right” and “Wheel of Fortune!” There’s a new game show in town and it’s backed by a well-known sheriff — the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) — now with a sense of humor. Well, sort of. No one expects a barrel of laughs to… Read More >>
Crypto’s Pitfalls Are the Focus of a New Guide
Say this for the computer kids who bought into the Great Crypto Scam: They (and others who dream of easy riches) are determined to tie themselves to the blockchain, no matter what. Even the recent $300 billion drop in value across the crypto economy (as calculated by the New York Times) hasn’t dissuaded them. The… Read More >>
Allianz Unit Pays Billions in Fines via Fraud Case
Allianz Global Investors U.S. LLC (AGI US) has admitted its guilt in what the SEC is calling “a massive fraudulent scheme” that hid the major risks of a complicated options trading strategy that the firm called “Structured Alpha.” The alleged scheme did not save the Structured Alpha funds, which collapsed and caused investors to lose… Read More >>
SEC Officials Must Finalize CAT Data Security: SIFMA
Kenneth E. Bentsen, Jr., president and CEO of SIFMA, is calling upon the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to pick up the pace when it comes to a data security proposal for the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) system, which is slated to go live in July. The CAT system is the result of SEC Rule… Read More >>
Gensler Pushes for Bond Trading Ops Overhaul
SEC Chair Gary Gensler is calling for a revamp of operations for U.S. fixed income markets — representing $53 trillion in securities — and is calling for price transparency, faster bond reporting, and more transparent post-trade processes, arguing that a new openness would improve counterparty risk management, bolster evaluations of trade execution quality, and increase… Read More >>
U.K. Authorities Push for Post-Trade Ops Overhauls
An influential U.K.-based task force focused on post-trade operations has issued a report calling for major changes in three “core areas:” non-economic trade data, client onboarding, and uncleared margin management. In addition, a key U.K. authority, the Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities Markets Standards Board (FMSB), has promised to act on the recommendations. The FMSB… Read More >>
