A Biden Working Group Says Stablecoins Are Risky Stablecoins lack good oversight, making them risky for users and financial markets, says Janet L. Yellen, secretary of the U.S. Treasury, in a prepared statement. Yellen’s comments follow the release of a report from the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets (PWG), which is recommending that Congress… Read More >>
Did a Deutsche Bank Whistleblower Get Nearly $200M?
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has just announced a record-setting whistleblower award of nearly $200 million but it was quickly followed by a report in The Wall Street Journal that identified the tipster as someone from Deutsche Bank. The CFTC protects all whistleblowers via confidentiality. In a press release dated Oct. 21, CFTC officials acknowledged… Read More >>
SEC Updates Filing Fee Disclosure & Payment Methods
SEC Modernizes Fee Payments U.S. financial markets regulator, the SEC is revising “most fee-bearing forms, schedules, and related rules” and requiring companies and funds to “include all required information for filing fee calculation in a structured format,” officials announced. The regulator has “adopted amendments to modernize filing fee disclosure and payment methods” that will… 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 >>
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 >>
Trading Glitch Spurs CFTC Fine for Interactive Brokers
An electronic trading system that was not ready to receive negative crude oil futures prices and to calculate margin upon them serves as the basis for the CFTC’s recently settled case against Interactive Brokers in its role as a registered futures commission merchant (FCM). The CFTC is alleging that Interactive Brokers failed to prepare its… Read More >>
Will Crypto Yield Fool’s Gold & New Op Risks?
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are calling for some brakes to be put upon the mad rush to cryptocurrencies and digital assets because of the threats they might pose to the global financial infrastructure and the operational woes they could present. Michael Hsu, the acting… Read More >>
CFTC Cracks Down on Swaps Data Noncompliance
The CFTC is cracking down on the alleged failures of supervisory systems and other controls that swap dealers and other swap industry participants have set up to be compliant. In particular, the regulator has just announced enforcement actions against Société Générale S.A., Mizuho Capital Markets, and the Refinitiv SEF, among others. “Swap dealer registrants must… Read More >>
Northern Trust Uses Algorithms to Find Initial Margin
Northern Trust Develops Offering with Acadia With help from vendor Acadia, Northern Trust launched an automated solution for initial margin (IM) calculation that exploits algorithms to find assets that will help firms meet regulatory obligations, officials say. The solution was developed to help clients meet the September 1 deadline for compliance with the Uncleared Margin… Read More >>
SEC Bars Two People from Whistleblower Program
I should not have been surprised to learn that the SEC can bar people from becoming whistleblowers. In an unusual press release, the regulator, which in these cases, cannot name names, has “barred two individuals from the SEC’s whistleblower award program, each of whom filed hundreds of frivolous award applications.” It appears that the regulator’s… Read More >>