SWIFT officials confirm that they have uncovered new cases of “input fraud” via hackers attempting to harm member/customers of the financial messaging and services cooperative. The cooperative has not revealed the identity of the financial services firms that were most recently harmed or the amounts of money involved. In response to questions from FTF News,… Read More >>
Hedge Fund Manager Charged for Defrauding First Investor
The SEC has charged Nicholas M. Mitsakos and his fund Matrix Capital Markets (MCM), the California-registered investment advisory firm he founded in 2013, with fraud, accusing them of “pretending to manage millions of dollars in assets and then stealing money from the first client who invested with them based on their misrepresentations.” Those SEC allegations… Read More >>
Binary-Options Firms Fined $4.58M, Banned from Trading
Two web-based binary-options firms, Vault Options, Ltd. and Global Trader 365, have been hit with a $3 million civil monetary penalty, plus $1,587,731 in restitution, and have been banned from future trading, for defrauding their customers and violating the Commodity Exchange Act. The two companies, both based in Israel, apparently are no longer doing business… Read More >>
HSBC Cooperating with FBI FX Probe
HSBC is cooperating with a widely publicized U.S. Department of Justice investigation of two of its top foreign exchange trading officials who are charged with using confidential information about their client for personal gain and at the expense of that client. “HSBC has been and continues to cooperate in the DOJ’s foreign exchange investigation,” a… Read More >>
SEC Fines Merrill Lynch $415M for Misusing Customer Cash
The SEC reports that Merrill Lynch has admitted to illegally using billions of dollars of its customers’ money, on a weekly basis from 2009 until last year, to finance its own trades. The well-known brokerage, owned by Bank of America Corp., will pay a $415 million penalty and admits wrongdoing to settle charges that it… Read More >>
SWIFT Moves to Allay Fears over Cyber-Attacks
SWIFT is hoping to allay fears across its network with a new five-point program after three hacking incidents. The aim is not only to tighten its own defenses but ensure that its members are also reinforcing security within their own walls. Over the past year, the Belgium non-profit cooperative group has been indirectly involved in… Read More >>
Robotics Comes to Due Diligence Reporting
Opus Signs Distribution Deal with OutsideIQ Opus, a regulatory software as a service (SaaS) vendor, announced that its Alacra, know your customer (KYC), reference data management and onboarding platform, will have access to automated due diligence reports for compliance via a distribution partnership with OutsideIQ, an artificial intelligence software provider. The agreement will make OutsideIQ’s… Read More >>
A 21st Century Bank Robbery You’ve Never Heard Of
A story that has gotten little attention but is noteworthy is the $100 million apparently stolen via cyber-fraud in February from the Bangladesh central bank account in the U.S. The ongoing saga has caused the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Bangladesh Bank and SWIFT officials to issue a statement on May 10, 2016. “Representatives… Read More >>
SEC Alleges Accounting Firm Botched Exams
The SEC has clamped down on Santos, Postal & Co. (SPC), an accounting firm responsible for conducting SEC-related exams, charging it and one of its partners, Joseph A. Scolaro, a 25-percent SPC owner, with inadequate performance in their conduct of surprise examinations of an investment advisor, SFX Financial Advisory Management Enterprises, whose president allegedly “secretly… Read More >>
NICE Actimize System Offers Cross-Asset Surveillance
Risk and compliance vendor NICE Actimize has launched a “compliance-as-a-service” cloud-based offering that promises to provide surveillance capabilities across multiple asset classes. The new Actimize Cross-Asset Cloud Markets Surveillance solution will also offer case management capabilities to help financial services firms formulate their enterprise-wide scans for risk, vendor officials say. “Cross asset is extremely important… Read More >>
