There’s a twist in the ongoing saga of the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) via a new delay that actually has the approval of a key player in the securities industry. To remind you, the CAT system is the result of SEC Rule 613, which requires U.S. securities exchanges and FINRA, the self-regulatory organization (SRO) for… Read More >>
Bonus-Worthy Gadgets: A Smart Collar for Your Pooch?
(Editor’s Note: FTF News was fortunate to get time with Terry Anderton, the founder and CEO of Wagz, a company that launched the Wagz Freedom Smart Dog Collar, which sells for $249.00. The device does not use electric shocks to keep your dog from straying. Instead, this dog collar applies more humane methods to stop… Read More >>
Time to Deal with Your Insomnia?
It’s not breaking news that we are living with rather high levels of stress that are manifesting themselves in poor sleeping patterns. To help people cope, French entrepreneurs Guillaume Barathon and Charlie Rousset started Morphée in Paris about three years ago in an effort to find natural solutions for insomnia. They wanted their offerings to… Read More >>
Is ESG Blurring Too Many Lines?
ESG-based investing efforts and their related operational adjustments are getting real for many securities firms. And the ESG push is beginning to blur many lines that many never questioned before. For those who have not been following ESG too closely, the Investopedia website offers a succinct definition: “Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria are a… Read More >>
Yellen Urges a Cautious Approach to CBDCs
The concept of digital currencies run by central banks is counter to the chaos-driven cryptocurrency movement. But central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are now seen in a very favorable light because of the protections and order they could bring to the crypto world. Even so, Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen earlier this month… Read More >>
Average Wall Street Bonuses Hit $257,500
Bonus season on Wall Street is here and it could be quite lucrative for some. For achievements in 2021, bonuses for staff at actual Wall Street firms grew by 20 percent over bonuses for 2020, according to the New York State Comptroller’s office. “The average bonus paid to employees in New York City’s securities industry… Read More >>
BNP Paribas to Add 1,000 More Women in IT
On International Women’s Rights Day, March 8, a banking giant made a surprising announcement, and challenged itself to do better: “The BNP Paribas Group has set itself an ambitious target: to have 1,000 more women in our IT professions by the end of 2024, through both internal and external recruitment.” While the Women’s Rights Day… Read More >>
Exploring Lifestyle Gadgets at CES 2022
As promised, I am offering another quick view into the wide, wide world of electronic gadgets that could quickly eat up your bonus and tax returns. For this blog posting, I have scanned consumer items featured at the CES 2022 conference in Las Vegas, which included Pepcom’s Digital Experience! event for journalists. It’s hard to find a… Read More >>
High Stakes for COVID-19 Policies
The stakes are high for financial services firms as they twist themselves into pretzels to formulate policies that prevent disease via the ongoing COVID-19 virus pandemic and yet facilitate flexible return-to-work strategies. All of which makes Credit Suisse Group’s recent executive shuffle apparently related to pandemic policies so interesting. In case you haven’t seen the… Read More >>
Happy Holidays & See You in 2022!
It’s not logical to say but 2021 feels as if it flew by. We had a constant flow of major news events from the January 6 attack upon Capitol Hill to severe weather events and new COVID-19 variants that disrupted plans for a return to a new normal. In fact, the new normal turns out… Read More >>