For Kelvin To, founder and president of fintech start-up Data Boiler Technologies, Big Data isn’t just a buzzword – it’s a way of life. That much is evident by the excitement in his voice when discussing the subject, as well as the lofty metaphors he employs to describe it. A recent blog post of his,… Read More >>
Elizabeth Warren Attacks Dodd-Frank Section Repeal
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren launched an attack on a provision in the omnibus, $1.1 trillion spending bill of Congress that would prevent Section 716 of the Dodd-Frank Act from ending federal government bailouts for financial services firms engaged in risky swap derivatives. Despite Warren’s call for the House of Representatives to pull the repeal, the… Read More >>
How the Regulators Got It So Wrong
Government regulators, including Wall Street overseers, undercut their reform efforts by making rules that are so specific that people are focused on specifications and not on resolving problems. So says Philip K. Howard, a lawyer and author of the new book “The Rule of Nobody: Saving America from Dead Laws and Broken Government.” While Howard… Read More >>
Is the Volcker Rule Worth $4.3 Billion?
In its latest analysis, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency estimates that the cost of the Volcker Rule for financial services firms will range widely from $413 million to $4.3 billion. In return, the industry may get a Holy Grail of transparency via “required metrics reporting, reduced conflicts of interests, improved safety and… Read More >>
And, now, the Winter/Spring edition of FTF News Magazine
The long winter has given us at Financial Technologies Forum the extra time we needed to pull together many projects such as the Winter/Spring edition of the digital FTF News magazine, officially debuting today. In the meantime, the FTF News website has been re-launched and we have hit a warp speed that Captain Kirk would… Read More >>
Readers Pick FATCA as Top Story for 2013
Three of the top news stories for 2013 among FTF News readers dealt with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). The adoption of the Volcker Rule by regulators was the second most popular story while the FIX protocol’s advances into post-trade processing also attracted lots of attention. SAC Capital’s admission of guilt also garnered… Read More >>
2013: The Year in Ops
Last year was one of two steps forward and one step back as far as post-trade operations. As in previous years, regulatory overhauls particularly for over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives drove operations for the industry while there were some interesting disruptions such as the emergence of FIX for post-trade efforts. What follows is my interpretation of the… Read More >>
FinTech Predictions and Battles Ahead in 2014
While overshadowed by the holidays, the season of predictions is upon us and there will be many financial technology prognostications for 2014. Overall, there are already signs that, yes, Virginia, we may have reasons to be jolly next year. If nothing else, we’ll be very busy. For starters, investment in risk management technologies, services and… Read More >>
Get Ready for the Age of Volcker
Some participants at Sifma’s Annual Meeting last month were telling me that the Volcker Rule would never see the light of day. They were confident that the proposed changes made over the past two years had made the pending Dodd-Frank reform unrecognizable, even harmful to financial services firms. Surely, the regulators would drop it —… Read More >>
The Volcker Rule Hits Home
The historic Volcker Rule approved by the SEC and other regulators will impact many facets of a financial services firm’s operations as well as many business practices, and may eventually cause firms to back away from riskier and capital-intensive activities.The rule, a key provision of Dodd-Frank, bans U.S. banks and their affiliates from engaging… Read More >>
