While controversy swirls around the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), management and technology consultancy BearingPoint reports that between March and August 2015, more than 2,000 financial institutions in 45 countries have been using its FiTAX financial information about U.S. clients to meet reporting requirements for local tax authorities and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)…. Read More >>
SWIFT Price Cuts Deeper than Expected
SWIFT’s five-year, SWIFT2015 strategy to shrink its pricing for its messaging services has beat the cooperative’s expectations because of “strong” traffic growth, cost controls and pricing schemes, resulting in a 57 percent price reduction expected by the end of this year. Officials from the cooperative announced the strategy result at SWIFT’s annual Sibos gathering, underway… Read More >>
IRS Eases Key Pain Points of FATCA Transitional Rules
The Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are extending key transitional rules for the controversial Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), in response to concerns from those affected by the effort of the U.S. government to enforce tax compliance for foreign financial assets and offshore accounts held by U.S. citizens overseas…. Read More >>
Ops Needs Hub to ‘Take Out Operational Risk and Cost’ of KYC
(Editor’s note: Designed for simplifying client data gathering and document management, the Clarient Entity Hub utility service of Clarient Global went live in the spring with the support of Barclays, BNY Mellon, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and State Street. The hub targets the client onboarding and client lifecycle operations such as know your… Read More >>
SS&C: ‘Sunsetting products upsets your client base’
Editor’s note: Earlier this month, SS&C Technologies, which offers financial services firms software and software-enabled services, completed its $2.63 billion acquisition of Advent Software, a vendor of software and services for investment management firms. Advent has more than 4,300 customers including asset managers, hedge funds, fund administrators, prime brokers, family offices and wealth management advisory… Read More >>
Bank of America Vet Joins Holley Holland
Bank of America (BofA) veteran Marty Rose has joined Holley Holland, the self-described “business transformation experts” to build the change management consultancy’s U.S. business, including opportunities in Charlotte, North Carolina, and throughout the region, officials say. Rose, who will be based in Charlotte, has left her post as chief operating office (COO) of the EST… Read More >>
Five Years On, Dodd-Frank’s Ops Changes Are Here to Stay
The U.S. financial services industry — including its collective back- and middle-offices in particular — has undergone sweeping changes since the Great Recession, the vast majority of which are directly attributable to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act. The law was contentious from the very beginning, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that opinion on its… Read More >>
Avox Receives ISO 27001 Certification
Avox, the DTCC’s wholly owned subsidiary specializing in legal entity reference data, reports that it has received International Standard Organization (ISO) 27001 certification from the British Standards Institution. The ISO 27001information security standard “certifies that Avox has the requisite information security controls in place to protect client data,” Avox says. “The certification is awarded only… Read More >>
FATCA Faces Lawsuit, Taxpayer Advocate’s Criticisms
As I expected, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and its related controversies have not gone gently into that good political night. For starters, Republican U.S. Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky is part of a legal battle, filed this month via the federal court in Dayton, Ohio, against the U.S. Treasury Department and the… Read More >>
Convergex Fills CFO Post
Convergex, an agency-focused brokerage and trading-related services provider, reports that Frederick Arnold has joined the firm as chief financial officer (CFO). Arnold will oversee all global financial operations and serve on the executive committee, responsible for providing organizational guidance and governance, Convergex officials say. Currently a director of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Corporate Capital… Read More >>
