SWIFT reports senior management changes, including the exit of Chris Church as SWIFT’s chief executive of the Americas and global head of securities, that the member-owned financial messaging cooperative says will better enable it to execute its recently approved 2020 strategy. The staff changes, which take effect on September 1, are: Christian Sarafidis, currently head… Read More >>
BTG Pactual Joins SWIFT’s KYC Registry
SWIFT reports that BTG Pactual, a Latin American financial services firm, has joined the know-your-customer (KYC) registry of the financial messaging cooperative. SWIFT, which provides the communications platform, products and services to connect more than 10,800 banking organizations, securities institutions and corporate customers, calls the KYC registry a “centralized repository that maintains a standardized set… Read More >>
SWIFT’s KYC Registry Supports Fund Distributors, Custodians
Financial messaging and services cooperative SWIFT has expanded its Know Your Customer (KYC) Registry to support funds distribution and custody services, officials say. Formerly focused exclusively on correspondent banking, the KYC Registry will now offer “fund distributors and custodians a unique approach to KYC compliance by providing access to a standardized set of qualified data… Read More >>
No Pain, No Gain for KYC, AML Deployments
Increasing regulatory complexity and the massive fines, penalties and settlements levied against several of the world’s largest banks due to Know Your Customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) violations mean financial services firms take these aspects of compliance seriously even if implementing fixes is proving to be painful. “KYC compliance is still a major pain… Read More >>
Fenergo’s New COO from Adobe
Fenergo, the Dublin, Ireland-based provider of client lifecycle management software for investment banks, capital market firms and private banks, reports the appointment of Colm Heffernan as chief operating officer (COO). Industry-veteran Heffernan joins Fenergo from Adobe Systems, “where he spent 15 years in a variety of senior roles,” according to a statement. Most recently, he… Read More >>
What is the ROI for Regulatory Compliance?
Today, April 15, is the day when all Americans get a taste of what it’s like to comply with a regulatory deadline. This is the day that all personal income taxes are due to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Of course, extensions can be requested but every American is required by law to pay taxes…. Read More >>
Asia-Pacific Lost in the T+2 Shuffle?
The operations industry has been focused on shorter settlement cycles in the U.S. for the past two to three years while Europe has made the transition from trading data plus three business days (T+3) to two business days (T+2). At the same time, Asia-Pacific has also been grappling with the push for shorter settlement. Still,… Read More >>
Why Corporate Actions is Still an Ops Burden
Last week, in an FTF News story about a new white paper from financial messaging cooperative SWIFT, I focused on the toll that regulatory compliance is taking on financial services firms. I wasn’t able to delve into the corporate actions section of the SWIFT paper but I can do that now. As I noted, the… Read More >>
Regulatory Compliance Tops List of Ops Burdens
A white paper from financial messaging and systems cooperative SWIFT finds that regulatory concerns tower over other operational challenges for the buy side in 2015. Research commissioned by SWIFT also shows that buy-side firms are grappling with automation and financial crime compliance initiatives. The findings came as a result of survey and are offered via… Read More >>
Fed Wants LEIs for Certain Reporting Forms
The Federal Reserve Board on Monday, March 16, proposed that banking organizations be required to include their existing Legal Entity Identifiers (LEIs) on certain regulatory reporting forms, officials say. The LEI standard is a 20-character alphanumeric code that is universal and uniquely corresponds to a single legal entity. The LEI reference code enables easier identification… Read More >>
