Amid a lot of conflicting news stories, Morgan Stanley recently announced that it wants to acquire the wealth and investment management firm, Eaton Vance Corp., and that it closed its acquisition of online, discount brokerage E*TRADE Financial Corp. — signs that Morgan Stanley and other Wall Street giants are trending toward safer waters than the… Read More >>
Paper Security Certificates Must Go: DTCC
The Depository Trust and Clearing Corp. (DTCC), a major post-trade infrastructure, systems, and services provider, is on a mission to convince the U.S. securities industry to get rid of paper-based, physical securities and replace them with electronic records. The proper term for the effort is dematerialization, which the DTCC says is an essential transition that… Read More >>
FinCEN Moves to Overhaul AML Practices
Changes are coming to banks’ the anti-money laundering practices and procedures. The U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has unveiled an early look at those proposed prospective changes in its Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM), soliciting public comment on pending regulatory amendments under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). The FinCEN’s proposal is likely… Read More >>
Ops Spends Too Much Time On Exceptions: Q&A
(Todd Sloan, business development, senior vice president, Electra Information Systems, took time out of his schedule to give FTF News a progress report on Electra Information Systems. The provider of reconciliation and other post-trade solutions, Electra is the winner of the 2020 FTF News Technology Innovation award for “Best Reconciliation Solution” for the fifth consecutive… Read More >>
Black Diamond Upgrades Links to Schwab’s Custodial Platform
SS&C Advent’s Black Diamond Wealth Platform is offering more digital access to the Schwab Advisor Center custodial platform via IT integration links that help end-users eliminate paper-based processes, save time, improve accuracy, and move faster toward digitizing their workflows, officials say. Schwab and SS&C’s Advent have been serving mutual clients “for more than 30 years,”… Read More >>
Blockchain Successor to CHESS to Launch in 2022
Pandemic Delays Launch of New ASX System The Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) has set its new go-live date of April 2022 for the blockchain-based system that will replace its incumbent clearing and settlement, the Clearing House Electronic Subregister System (CHESS), officials say. The new launch date is 12 months beyond the original launch date, which… Read More >>
The Attack Upon the Pakistani Stock Exchange
We are hit every day with a seemingly endless flow of news stories about cataclysmic events. But a terrorist attack upon the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) in Karachi on Monday, June 29, still shocked the world. By the time the attack was over, the four armed, separatist terrorists leading the attack were shot dead, according… Read More >>
SEC & FINRA Penalize SG Americas Securities
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and FINRA, a financial services self-regulatory authority, have together fined SG Americas Securities LLC a total of $3.1 million for allegedly submitting inaccurate trade data for seven-plus years. SG Americas Securities is an investment management company that is a subsidiary of Société Générale S.A., which is a French multinational… Read More >>
Criminals Are Taking Aim During the Lockdown: Q&A
(Editor’s note: FTF News got a chance to ask Rachel Woolley, director of financial crime at Fenergo, about criminals who are taking advantage of more firms working remotely during the pandemic.) Q: In your opinion, why are fraudulent transactions and money laundering scams on the rise during the pandemic? A: As many of us have… Read More >>
Ready for a LIBOR Transition Exam?
To make sure that things are moving along as they should, the SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) quietly released a Risk Alert, “Examination Initiative: LIBOR Transition Preparedness,” on June 18 that reminds people that the OCIE is happy to inspect your firm’s progress. The global push to move away from the London… Read More >>
