UBS Financial Services Inc. has reached an $8 million settlement with the SEC over allegations that the firm had compliance failures via the sales of exchange-traded products (ETPs) tied to market volatility. UBS Financial Services Inc. is a broker-dealer and investment adviser that has had dual registration with the SEC since 1971, according to the… Read More >>
NSCC Automates Collateral Management for ETFs
NSCC Also Adds Support for Fixed Income ETFs National Securities Clearing Corp. (NSCC) officials report that they have launched an automated solution to make the collateral management process for exchange-traded funds (ETFs) more efficient. The changes to this mostly manual process also include new support for fixed income ETF capabilities. “The new NSCC solution fully… Read More >>
Crypto Undermines SEC’s Mission: Sen. Elizabeth Warren
Sen. Warren Urges SEC to Consider Crypto Regs Wall Street critic U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is asking Gary Gensler, the chair of the SEC, via a recent letter, to investigate the ways that cryptocurrency exchanges “may be undermining the SEC’s mission” as a regulator of securities trading markets. The letter from Warren, who is… Read More >>
BNY Mellon Buys Milestone to Expand NAV Wares
The Bank of New York Mellon Corp. is acquiring Milestone Group, a fund management technology vendor, so that BNY Mellon can provide its custody banking clients with more digital solutions for net asset value (NAV) support, officials say. The Milestone Group offers the pControl platform for fund and investment automation. The acquisition will help BNY… Read More >>
Equiti to Use FlexTrade’s FX Platform MaxxTrader
MaxxTrader to Bolster Equiti’s Prime Services Equiti, an online trading technology provider, will be using the MaxxTrader foreign exchange platform from FlexTrade Systems as the basis for its prime of prime services offering, officials say. MaxxTrader will help Equiti provide its prime of prime customers with “global FX liquidity aggregation, trade execution management, and institutional… Read More >>
RJO Relaunches & Fills President’s Post
RJO Promotes Staniford to President Chicago-based R.J. O’Brien & Associates (RJO), which is generally regarded as the oldest and largest independent futures brokerage and clearing firm in the United States, reports that Daniel Staniford has been named president. Staniford will “act on behalf of RJO and all of its global affiliates and related entities, including… Read More >>
Symphony Buys Cloud9 to Jolt Voice Trading
Symphony to Unite Voice Trading with NLP Symphony, a messaging and platform provider for trading firms, reports that it is trying to “tackle true pain points in markets’ workflows” via the acquisition of trader voice/electronic communication and analytics company Cloud9 Technologies. The acquisition will help Symphony “take the lead in front office communications with new… Read More >>
FINRA Puts an Expiration Date on OATS
Self-regulatory organization, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) is quietly putting an expiration date of September 1, 2021, on the Order Audit Trail System (OATS) as the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) reaches a new level of reliability. In typical legalese, FINRA officials released the following Regulatory Notice 21-21: “Effective September 1, 2021, FINRA is amending… Read More >>
Time to Learn More About Open Source?
Financial services firms are using a lot of open source software but there may be a gap in their understanding of how to manage the “opportunities and potential challenges” of the open source movement, according to the Fintech Open Source Foundation, also known as FINOS. FINOS is an independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is to… Read More >>
T+1 Update: Feedback Will Determine Time Frame
The push to shorten the U.S. securities settlement cycle from T+2 to T+1 by 2023 is well into the information-gathering stage via private industry workshops that will decide the details of the time frame for the transition, which is expected to be announced during the last quarter of this year. The workshops are also helping… Read More >>
