FNZ officials report that they have found a complicated, partial exit from their complicated acquisition of GBST, which was ultimately vetoed by a U.K. regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Known as a wealth management platform provider, FNZ has just announced that it has sold GBST to Anchorage Capital Partners, a global private equity… Read More >>
Senate Makes Behnam the New CFTC Chairman
Lost in the tsunami of federal government budget battle news is the welcome development that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has a new, official chairman — Rostin “Russ” Behnam, and that the stage has been set for a full roster of commissioners. On Dec. 16, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously to approve Rostin Behnam… Read More >>
ICE & RIMES Weave ETF Data Into Key Products
Integration Opens Access to Equity & Fixed Income Data Exchanges and technology company Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), owner of NYSE, reports that it has integrated exchange-traded funds (ETF) data managed by RIMES into key offerings such as ICE ETF Hub, ICE Portfolio Analytics, and ICE FI Select offerings, officials say. The enhancement will enable clients to… Read More >>
House Passes Bill to Fix ‘Tough’ LIBOR Contracts
Bill Would Ease the Way to SOFR In a rare act of bipartisanship, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed legislation intended to ease the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) transition for “markets, investors, and consumers” with what’s known as “tough legacy contracts” — incumbent agreements that will end without a designated reference rate. The… Read More >>
Crypto to Face New Rules in 2022: Regulators
Heavy-hitter federal regulators say new rules are coming for cryptocurrencies, the new, mostly unregulated financial sector that competes with traditional banks without offering deposit insurance, the banks’ most important protection. And cryptography has been beset by high-profile scandals that have cost some would-be crypto millionaires their entire fortunes. As well, at a time of worsening… Read More >>
Key Groups Push to Start T+1 in 2024
The goalpost for the move by U.S. equities markets from T+2 to the shorter T+1 settlement cycle has shifted from 2023 to the first half of 2024 after an outreach to the industry revealed that more time was needed to revamp and test systems, workflows, and operations to facilitate this fundamental change to securities transaction processing…. Read More >>
SEI Acquires Finomial
Finomial Technology to Be Added to SEI Platforms SEI reports the acquisition of Finomial, which it characterizes as an “investor lifecycle management firm offering cloud-native financial technology. The technology is expected to be added to SEI’s existing investor-focused platforms to further enhance automation and digitization capabilities, as well as reporting and transparency.” SEI’s current… Read More >>
‘Zombie Libors’ Don’t Exist & Can’t Help: OCC
Banks must avoid complacency in meeting the Dec. 31, 2021 deadline for transitioning from the ill-fated London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (Libor) to the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) because failing to do so could cause problems with operations, safety, and soundness. In addition, banks should not be hoping for a “synthetic or zombie” Libor version that… Read More >>
UBS Pays $500K to Resolve Audio Deletion Case
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has issued an order “simultaneously filing and settling” charges against UBS AG for “failing to retain certain audio recordings for the time required under CFTC regulations.” Rather than retaining the recordings of more than 1,000 hours of audio data — including voice recording files that were required by CFTC regulations… Read More >>
DeepSee’s Mission: Unlock Trapped Data via A.I.
Trapped data has always been the bane of the back office, and the reason so much manual processing remains in middle- and back-office roles. “For DeepSee.ai, unlocking that data is the key to success as firms look to accelerate their move toward full-scale digital transformation,” says Steve Shillingford, CEO of DeepSee. “Much of the most… Read More >>
