The SEC has given a major boost to the movement to shorten settlement times in U.S. equities markets from T+2 to T+1 via a vote this week to formally propose rule changes that tighten clearing and settlement time-frames and facilitate T+1 by mid-2024. The SEC wants the proposed changes because they will “reduce the credit,… Read More >>
T+0 Settlement via New Exchange & Other Briefs
SEC Approves BSTX’s Launch The SEC has blessed the creation of a regulated, national securities exchange facility, dubbed BSTX, that can settle instruments in one day (T+0) while providing blockchain-based market data reporting, officials say. The BSTX is a trading facility of BOX Exchange and a joint venture of tZero Group, Inc., and BOX Digital… Read More >>
The Fed Is Starting to Think About CBDCs
The Federal Reserve is mulling what a digital currency backed by a central bank would look like. This should come as no surprise given the onset of blockchains and distributed ledger technology, and then cryptocurrencies and digital assets in many forms. They all have had an underlying driver – a disintermediation push to bring on… Read More >>
Gensler Mulls New Cybersecurity Rules via Expanded SCI
SEC Chair Gary Gensler wants to breathe new life into the fight against cyberattacks and is calling for a refresh of Regulation Systems Compliance and Integrity (Reg SCI) that might mean new cybersecurity hygiene and incident reporting rules for investment companies, investment advisers, and broker-dealers. During his speech for the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law’s… Read More >>
Credit Suisse Securities Settles Conflicts of Interest Case
FINRA, the financial industry’s non-profit self-regulatory authority, has fined Credit Suisse Securities $9 million for “failing to comply with securities laws and rules designed to protect investors, including the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Customer Protection Rule and FINRA rules requiring firms to disclose potential conflicts of interest when issuing research reports.” In a formulation that’s… Read More >>
Exploring Lifestyle Gadgets at CES 2022
As promised, I am offering another quick view into the wide, wide world of electronic gadgets that could quickly eat up your bonus and tax returns. For this blog posting, I have scanned consumer items featured at the CES 2022 conference in Las Vegas, which included Pepcom’s Digital Experience! event for journalists. It’s hard to find a… Read More >>
High Stakes for COVID-19 Policies
The stakes are high for financial services firms as they twist themselves into pretzels to formulate policies that prevent disease via the ongoing COVID-19 virus pandemic and yet facilitate flexible return-to-work strategies. All of which makes Credit Suisse Group’s recent executive shuffle apparently related to pandemic policies so interesting. In case you haven’t seen the… Read More >>
ISITC Promotes Vice Chair to Top Post
Industry standards trade group ISITC has named Kristin Hochstein, the current vice chair, to be its new chair for the 2022-23 term, and she will take over for Lisa Iagatta, who will finish her three-year term as chair by the end of this month. The group, which develops standards and best practices for financial services… Read More >>
Clearing Is Broken: Q&A with RQD*’s CEO
(Consolidation across the clearing sector has resulted in less competition, fewer options for securities firms, and a broken system, says Michael Sanocki, CEO of RQD* Clearing, a new correspondent clearing provider. Thus RQD’s mission is to reach out to firms that are “sorely underserved” and “ripe for disruption.” RQD, which officially launched last month, offers… Read More >>
AWS Outage Halted FINRA Systems on Dec. 7
Key online systems of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) were unavailable on Tuesday, Dec. 7, because of an outage at cloud computing provider Amazon Web Services (AWS) that lasted about seven hours, according to alerts from the self-regulatory organization and Amazon. AWS has become a major cloud provider for financial services firms, particularly those… Read More >>
