December has always been full of surprises — good and bad — and the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the exchanges company that owns the New York Stock Exchange, has announced a slew of executive surprises this week for NYSE and ICE. In a press release and an accompanying letter from Jeff Sprecher, founder, chairman, and CEO… Read More >>
Broadridge Dashboard Offers ESG Views of Companies: Q&A
(Post-trade systems, services, and software provider Broadridge Financial Solutions recently launched the Broadridge ESG Performance Dashboard, an effort that is intended to present investors and shareholders with a wide view of companies and their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) ratings, officials say. ESG criteria “are a set of standards for a company’s operations that socially… Read More >>
Credit Suisse to Exit Prime Services Business
Credit Suisse officials shortly after they announced an exit from the prime services business revealed that they have signed a referral agreement with BNP Paribas that will enable the French banking giant to provide support for the Swiss bank’s prime services and derivatives clearing customers. The move was made to facilitate the migration of clients… Read More >>
NatWest Pleads Guilty to Money-Laundering Violations
A large bank is guilty of violating the United Kingdom’s money-laundering regulations. Says who? Says the bank itself. FTF News readers, who are familiar with all the ploys financial institutions employ to avoid saying they’ve done wrong (all that neither-confirming-nor-denying while paying up and agreeing to be censured), will know just how unusual that is…. Read More >>
Crypto Firms Face Many AML Challenges: Q&A
(A cryptocurrency trading platform, Voyager Digital Ltd., recently announced that it is using anti-money laundering (AML) solutions from NICE Actimize. Voyager has signed onto the cloud-based AML Essentials offerings and will be using the Suspicious Activity Monitoring and Customer Due Diligence applications to monitor its operations. The news gave FTF News an opportunity to reach… Read More >>
Compliance Costs for Fighting Financial Crime Soar: Report
The “projected total cost of financial crime compliance across all financial institutions reached $213.9 billion in 2021, surpassing the $180.9 billion recorded in 2020.” That projection is from the “True Cost of Financial Crime Compliance Global Report,” a white paper from LexisNexis Risk Solutions. Not surprisingly, the white paper also concludes that the “majority of… Read More >>
Rep’s Strategies Spur FINRA Charges & Fine for Firm
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has hit a brokerage in Cincinnati, Ohio with a censure, a fine of $275,000, and the obligation to make more than $1 million in customer restitution. The broker is the O.N. Equity Sales Company, Inc. (ONESCO), which “offers various investment products, including deferred variable annuities, to the public through its 760… Read More >>
SteelEye to Expand into North American Markets
SteelEye Raised $17 Million to Fund Growth SteelEye, a compliance technology and data analytics vendor based in the United Kingdom, reports that it plans to expand into North America. Founded in 2017, SteelEye offers a software-as-a-service (SaaS) based regulatory-technology platform for “banks, brokers, and asset managers” that is meant to simplify their compliance processes, officials say. In… Read More >>
SEC to Patrol for ESG & Climate Change Sins
Climate change, a.k.a. global warming, and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concerns are getting real for financial services firms, particularly those working in securities trading. This is also true for the regulators overseeing them such as the SEC. A case in point is our story this week about a $247 billion pension fund, the New… Read More >>
Firms May Need to Revamp AML Policies: Report
U.S. banks may need to update their anti-money-laundering (AML) policies as a result of key provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2021 (NDAA), which primarily covers appropriations for the U.S. Department of Defense programs, activities, and military personnel. However, the NDAA also covers many “matters relating to foreign nations,” according to the overview… Read More >>
