RegTech Intelligence
The regulators that oversee the economy are drowning in oceans of data, but need better standards to make sense of it all. The struggle stemming from the lack of standardised data was clearly visible in 2012 when the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) needed to trace the so-called ‘London whale’, a trader who accumulated Credit…
JWG’s RegTech Capital Markets Conference has made it into Business Insider’s list of the world’s best RegTech conferences to attend in 2017. The 300-person event in Central London on 28 February will bring together the world’s largest financial institutions, public bodies and systems-providers. Business Insider research finds that RegTech’s biggest advantages don’t just lie “automating…
In fewer than 230 days – 7.5 working months from now, the biggest regulatory change since the 2008 financial crisis is set to come into force. The legislation, Markets in Financial Instruments Directive/Regulation (MiFID II/R), is one of Europe’s most ambitious and far-reaching financial reforms and is estimated to cost the financial industry billions to…
Looking at the FinTech and RegTech conversations in 2017 we find that there is considerable confusion about some basic terms, definitions and relationships amongst policy makers, academics and practitioners alike. The now much more popular term is being used to describe many things. When you say RegTech, do you mean it to be a subset…
The common image of a cybercriminal is that of a slovenly, yet highly-skilled, individual sitting alone in a basement having not seen daylight in weeks. The modern cybercriminal, however, is far removed from this. Cybercriminals are organised in large networks, often well-funded and highly talented which allows them to unleash devastating attacks. According to online…
On 31 January 2017, ESMA published a consultation paper seeking feedback by the end of Q1 on its draft guidelines regarding the transfer of data between trade repositories (TRs) and it is expected to publish the final report on these guidelines by the end of Q2/beginning of Q3 of 2017. The three main reasons for…
Improving the culture and codes of conduct within financial services firms has been a longstanding issue of contention since the financial crisis. Combatting negative behaviours and inefficient controls has proven difficult to regulate and tackle head on. In 2013, the FSB officially acknowledged business conduct as a new category of business risk and now, in…
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is currently a hot topic for financial services, and with good reason, as banks are looking for efficient solutions to costly and cumbersome regulatory burdens and this is exactly what DLT promises to deliver. One of the key areas where there is clear application for this is in meeting Know Your…
One of the costliest and most troublesome activities that financial institutions face is complying with regulations. With information technology having already revolutionised consumer financial products, business models, applications, processes and services otherwise known as “FinTech,” it is less well known that information technology could also be used to help financial institutions meet the growing regulatory…
On 3 February 2017, President Trump announced in a press briefing that “we expect to be cutting a lot of Dodd-Frank” because “so many people, friends of mine, with nice businesses” had been stifled by regulations and therefore faced difficulties acquiring loans. Later that day, Trump signed Executive Order 13772, which established the agenda for…
The sheer number of overlapping regulatory reporting regimes makes compliance difficult. MiFID II, which comes into effect in January 2018, significantly expands the scope of transaction reporting. EMIR, which is a reporting regime for derivative transactions under the EU regulation on OTC derivatives, CCPs and trade repositories, came into effect on 10 April 2014. Reporting…
The rise of [insert-abbreviation-here]Tech companies signifies a pragmatic shift of business consciousness toward solutions that make use of advances in modern technology. In the banking sector, the magnitude and complexity of firms has immobilised the possibility for innovation. FinTech solutions attempt to combat this issue by producing new and intuitive services for banks and the…
Since the financial crisis, we have been gifted over two Eiffel Towers high worth of complex and costly financial regulation, ever increasing in quantity and intricacy. Boards struggle to formulate their strategies to deal with regulatory-driven change to their operating models. There are answers, and now is the time to flush them out - before…
The current buzzwords circulating around the media, “digital revolution”, succinctly capture what is occurring in the futures markets. With automated trading now constituting up to 70% of trades in regulated futures markets in the US, a modern-day Gordon Gekko would be using a cutting-edge code to create an automated trading system rather than relying on…
JWG are proud to announce that registrations for our second RegTech Conference on 28 February 2017 have topped 300 from over 50 firms, regulators, standards bodies and leading technology companies. After five years and hundreds of articles from our analysts on www.regtechfs.com and 47 special interest group meetings on regulatory implementation in 2016 alone, we…
On 21 January 2017, the European Commission (EC) published a delegated regulation and an implementing regulation in the Official Journal amending the RTS and ITS on the minimum details of the data to be reported to trade repositories under EMIR. One of the key changes made by the EC includes defining how to identify and classify…
On 19 January 2017, MEPs rejected the European Commission’s blacklist of countries at risk of money laundering and terrorist financing as being ‘too limited’. The rejection suggests that the list should be broader, by including countries that facilitate tax crime, for example. The list from the Commission contained the names of 11 countries, including Afghanistan,…
Following on from last month’s Q&A on commodity derivatives within MiFID II/MiFIR, on 17 January ESMA published its guidelines for the disclosure of inside information on commodity derivatives and spot markets under the Market Abuse Regulation framework. This publication is a response in accordance with Article 7(5) of MAR, that expresses ESMA to be the…
Big data and financial regulation share two striking resemblances: both are overwhelming and largely impenetrable to the uninitiated. Although combining the two is pursued with noble intentions by regulators, the result is a concoction of stress, confusion and frustration for most firms. This combination, however, is of paramount importance for firms’ and clients’ concerns about…
On 17 January, ESMA published advice received from the Securities and Markets Stakeholder Group (SMSG) in relation to the consultation on MiFID II product governance. This CP was released on 5 October 2016 and it set out to create guidelines relating to the target market assessment. The SMSG established a working group with the specific…
Never mind a busy December, all in all, it was a busy year for financial regulation as shown in one of our previous articles, as 384 regulatory documents were captured and uploaded in our trade and transaction RegDelta library. MiFID II Before Christmas, we saw ESMA publish many documents much like in January 2016 with…
On 11 January 2017, ESMA released its follow-up to the peer review on best execution which came out in February 2015. With significant improvement by many NCAs since the 2015 review, the follow-up reads as a far more positive report, with optimism for further development in the future. Although certainly not perfect, it reveals that…
Transparency is the cornerstone of MiFID II. Whether it’s pricing, product or process transparency, participants will need to pull back the curtains to make more information public regarding the nature of their operations, products and services. Consequently, investment firms will need to know more about their clients than ever before, with very little margin for…
The European Commission proposed on 21 December 2016 to strengthen Europe’s criminal law framework to combat money laundering by drawing on international standards to establish minimum rules for defining criminal offences, imposing sanctions in relation to money laundering and improving cross-border cooperation between Member States. In the press release, Commissioner Avramopoulos stated that this proposal…
In April 2016, European Supervisory Authorities (ESA) submitted a draft Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) for Packaged Retail and Insurance-based Investment Products (PRIIPs) Regulation, focusing on the requirements of key information documents (KID). Despite the KID RTS being endorsed by the EU Commission, the European Parliament - in a surprising move - rejected the draft. It…
On 19 December 2016, ESMA published its Q&A paper on the topic of commodity derivatives within MiFID II and MiFIR. The document focuses on the promotion of supervisory approaches and practices for the application of position limits, position reporting and ancillary activity provisions. It also provides clarity on the technicalities of the policy and the…
Just before the Christmas break, as part of its quick-fire release of numerous important updates, ESMA published a new Questions and Answers document that covers MiFIR data reporting. Broken down into two separate sections, the document looks specifically at (i) LEI of the issuer and (ii) date and time of the request of admission and…
On 23 November 2016, the European Commission published its proposal for a comprehensive reform package aimed at continuing risk reduction and to further strengthen resilience across the European banking system. Included within these proposals are amendments to the current capital requirements (CRR/CRD) and resolution framework (BRRD/SRM). The Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR) and Directive (CRD IV,…
Seismic decisions around the globe last year will make this year the most uncertain for future plans since the G20 agreed regulatory implementation priorities in 2009. Though the shifting tectonic plates of geopolitics will dominate 2017 headlines, the uncertainty doesn’t matter from an implementation perspective. There is an unprecedented level to change to get on…
On 16 December 2016, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published their fourth and final consultation paper (CP) on implementing MiFID II regulations into domestic regulation by 3 July 2017, which will be applied to firms from 3 January 2018. MiFID II aims to bolster competition in the EU’s financial market by creating a single market…
2016 has added tens of thousands of new regulatory pages to the pile, which has kept us, at JWG, very busy boys and girls. Unlike the last decade, however this year has been about unexpected twists and turns in the road: It’s been a year of MiFID II/R panic, implementation delays, regulators waking up to…
Transaction reporting can be a difficult regulatory requirement to get right and compliance can be even more complicated due to multiple overlapping transaction reporting regimes, which all serve slightly different purposes and have varying structures. This article looks at the transaction reporting requirements under four key regulations: MiFID II, EMIR, REMIT and SFTR. The first…
In our preceding article about ISINs, we explored the pursuit of a universal OTC identifier, and discussed what has occurred in Europe to fix this gap in the financial industry. The Association of National Numbering Agencies (ANNA) created the ANNA Derivatives Service Bureau, which is based on an automated ISIN allocation engine and is scheduled…
The FCA have released a video of the November TechSprint event on their RegTech webpage, which can be found here. The video, which features commentary from Christopher Woolard, Joanna Hill and Nick Cook from the FCA, rounds-up what was an exciting and informative experience for us at JWG, where we were given the opportunity to…
Tom Groenfeldt of Forbes has been speaking to PJ Di Giammarino, CEO of JWG, about the FCA’s recent TechSprint event and how technology can be leveraged to automate compliance. The event, which took place on the 9 and 10 of November, is part of the FCA’s broader mission, Project Innovate. This initiative has been designed to foster innovation…
In the previous two articles, we delved into the guidance notes on systematic internalisers and research. The third guidance note produced by JWG centres on inducements. This particular guidance note helps explain the MiFID II obligations of inducements, for example, it speaks of the necessary quality enhancement test and defines acceptable minor non-monetary benefits, just…
In order to comply with the latest regulations, firms must manage their transaction reporting obligations. A unified transaction reporting regime across the European Union (EU) was first introduced when MiFID I came into force in 2007 with the objective of detecting and investigating potential market abuses. With MiFID II implementation set for January 2018, transaction…
At JWG, through tracking key regulatory bodies including ESMA, FCA, FINRA and CFTC, we have picked up key documents for different legislative initiatives such as Dodd-Frank, EMIR, MiFID I, MiFID II and the Commodity Exchange Act. We have sourced over 1000 documents in relation to trade and transaction reporting. In the past month alone, we…
Following on from part 1 of this article, where we highlighted the benefits of the MiFID II Implementation Group (MIG) and how it has helped members better understand and develop solutions to key MiFID II/R issues, with a particular focus on those surrounding systematic internalisers, we take a similar approach in this article and examine…
OTC derivatives, unlike other financial instruments, have never really had a product identifier. Since as early as 2014, regulators’ high expectations for a detailed product identifier for OTC derivatives have caused consternation amongst industry experts as retooling the current infrastructure to the new specifications is an enormous task that could result in hundreds of billions…
After an action-packed two days of innovative ideas, collaborative spirit and technical expertise, JWG, are pleased to report that our participation at the FCA’s TechSprint event was an exciting, informative and rewarding experience. Held on 9 and 10 November, the event focused on the issue of ‘Unlocking Regulatory Reporting’ using RegTech solutions. We were specifically…
With the MiFID II/R implementation deadline less than 420 days away, financial institutions are trying to find the smartest ways to comply with this new regulation. JWG can make this process much easier through the collaborative effort of our MiFID II Implementation Group (MIG). About MIG The MIG is a JWG-facilitated weekly meeting of industry…
With the FCA’s commitment to innovation and to becoming a global leader in the development and adoption of RegTech solutions, JWG is excited to announce that we have been invited to participate in their upcoming TechSprint event. Held across two days, on the 9 and 10 November, the event, which focuses on the topic of…
Last month, JWG were pleased to participate in the Trusted Open Data Environments 2016 conference in Poznan, Poland, which was attended by data specialists from a variety of regulatory agencies, academics, practitioners and FinTech entrepreneurs. It was a full day of hot topics, including international standardisation, Initial Coin Offerings and data reporting. So, what did…
In December 2015, ESMA published a consultation paper on transaction reporting, order record keeping and clock synchronisation. Shortly after, we summarised the 10 key issues from the MiFID II guidelines for transaction reporting. Now, having considered the issues raised in the responses to the consultation paper, ESMA has published its guidelines. Considering the key topics…
We are pleased to publish the latest copy of our newsletter, RegBeacon. In this edition we look back on a quarter that saw us take major steps forward with our regulatory change management platform, RegDelta, host more than 10 industry working groups and agree to host another crucial conference on RegTech. As politicians, courts, regulators…
The Securities Financing Transitions Regulation (SFTR) has been introduced in the light of the G20’s agenda to address concerns of the build-up of leverage and pro-cyclicality which can be caused by securities transactions. Article 29(3) of SFTR specifically asks ESMA along with European Banking Authority (EBA) and European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) to help ESMA…
The plight or health of community banks has become a key weapon in the war between supporters and critics of Dodd-Frank and even financial regulation in general. The unmistakable decline in the number of community banks is used by many as an example of why the 12,000+ page legislation is flawed, as it supposedly hurts…
As time ticks on in the implementation delay for MiFID II, regulators and firms are moving closer towards mutual understanding and delivery. There are still many creases to be ironed out in the run up to January 2018, especially with regards to transaction reporting, which is a major pain point for many firms. This article…
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published its third consultation paper (CP3) with regards to the implementation of the revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) on 29 September 2016. MiFID II, which comes into effect on 3 January 2018, is aimed at making markets more efficient, transparent and responsible. Strengthening consumer protection is one…
There is no hiding that securities financing transactions, thanks to their role in the financial crisis of 2007-2008, do not have a good reputation. The Financial Stability Board’s policy framework seeks to address SFTs’ complex and opaque nature through increased transparency of these products to allow clients a more accurate assessment of where to invest…
The Federal Reserve Board published a final enhanced supervision rule, known as Regulation YY, on 18 February, 2014. This regulation implements certain provisions of Section 165 and 166 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to establish enhanced prudential standards for large US bank holding companies (BHC) and foreign banking organisations (FBO). …
On Wednesday 14 September, the EU Financial Affairs Sub-Committee heard evidence from Mr. Simon Gleeson, Partner at Clifford Chance, and Mr. Peter Snowdon, Partner at Norton Rose Fulbright, for its Brexit Inquiry into financial services. Over the course of an hour, the discussion focused on how UK firms might hope to invoke rights of ‘equivalence’…
So far 2016 has been one of the most contentious years since the G20 agreed the regulatory reform agenda seven years ago. With ever-rising costs, increasingly more severe penalties, and continued issues with data quality, it would be easy to claim the plans conceived in the wake of the crisis are not going to get…
The Payment Services Directive (PSD) was adopted in 2007 as a means for providing a legal foundation for establishing safer and easier electronic payment services throughout the European Union. The goal was to make cross-border payments quick, efficient and secure. In July 2013, the Commission decided to review PSD and modernise it to adapt to…
On the 14 September 2016 there was a staggering majority vote against the EU Commission’s Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) for the PRIIPS key information document (KID), at 602 to 4, with 12 abstentions. The rejection by the Parliament of the implementation rules proposed by the Commission is unprecedented in the financial markets, and now it…
Fitch Ratings, one of the largest three credit rating agencies, released a report on 11 September 2016 on how the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) increase in capital requirements under Basel III is likely to put nearly half of Indian banks in danger of breaching capital triggers. They emphasised that government owned banks are the…
The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) has become infamous for its unintentionally damaging effect on the average American expat, as many foreign financial institutions (FFIs) attempt to mitigate their paperwork and risk by denying custom to American citizens according to expat groups with mainly anecdotal evidence. Groups protecting US expats are proposing tweaks to…
On 18 August 2016, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) published two final guidance papers for authorities and firms as part of the agenda to end the “too big to fail” risk. Some progress is being made, and the FSB has said that “banks have begun to develop issuance strategies to meet new total loss-absorbing capacity…
The phase-in for central counterparty clearing (CCP) for certain Over-the-Counter (OTC) derivative contracts began in 21 June 2016 for certain contracts, with many more soon to follow, until all in-scope contracts are subject to the obligations by 9 August 2019. The European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) requires certain classes of OTC derivative contracts to be…
Benchmarks and indices are vital tools for assessing the underlying price of financial instruments and contracts as well as for measuring the performance of investment funds. Despite this, recent LIBOR and EURIBOR scandals have exposed how vulnerable to manipulation these instruments are. In the light of these events, the European Commission produced a benchmark regulation, which…
Several large Wall Street banks, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and J.P. Morgan, have requested five more years to comply with the Volcker rule, in order to sell their holdings which will become more difficult to sell as the summer deadline moves closer. If their request is accepted, it will give them until 2022 to…
On 5 August 2016, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) released a discussion paper on the ‘Strengthening of the Regulatory framework for Algorithmic Trading and Co-location’. This is yet another step in the global movement towards increased control on algorithmic trading. In the paper, SEBI proposes several suggestions for comment by all stakeholders…
The Global Financial Markets Association (GFMA), a banking lobby, has warned regulators that new rules must be closely examined to assess their impact on the global financial markets. This comes as a result of the proposed changes to capital requirements that the Basel Committee is currently implementing. These changes to capital requirements could have a…
In part 1 of this article, we examined three of the six key areas of overlap between the regulations on PRIIPs and MiFID II/R. In particular, we provided detail on, and discussed the degree of similarities between, the scope, the disclosure requirements for financial instruments and the obligations to identify a ‘target market’ between both…
On 18 July 2016, ESMA, the European Securities and Markets Authority, published its advice to the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission on extending the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) passport to 12 non-EU countries: Australia, Bermuda, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Guernsey, Hong Kong, the Isle of Man, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland and the…
The 2016 edition of the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Risks Report lists “failure of climate-change mitigation and adaptation” as the greatest risk facing the world over the next 10 years. That was the collective judgment of 742 surveyed experts and decision makers drawn from business, academia, civil society and the public sector. Last year’s…
On 18 July 2016, the FCA produced a consultation paper (CP16/18) outlining suggestions on how to prepare the rulebook for the introduction of PRIIPS. PRIIPS, which is designed to increase transparency of costs, risk and intended market, will take effect on 31 December 2016. It requires each manufacturer and distributor of insurance-based investment products (IIP) or packaged…
The FCA have now officially published the findings from their consultation with the industry on the development of RegTech. This is a much awaited document for those seeking to understand the direction of the regulator with regards innovation, particularly in the context of all the recent uncertainty in the wider regulatory landscape. It is evident…
We are pleased to publish the latest copy of our newsletter, RegBeacon. In this edition we look back on a quarter that saw us host a successful conference on RegTech and we consider where this leaves the industry and what the next steps need to be. This quarter, despite the most serious political event the…
On 17 June 2016, the Council of the European Union approved a one-year delay to the MiFID II transposition and implementation dates. Under the new regulation, the deadline for Member States to transpose MiFID II into national legislation is 3 July 2017 and the date of application for MiFID II/R is now set for 3…
This is the second in a series of occasional blogs we’ll be writing about what Brexit means for IT and IT Law in the coming weeks and months. Deirdre Moynihan reviews what Brexit is likely to mean for Data Protection, where the approach to implementing the General Data Protection Regulation could well turn out to…
This is the first in a series of occasional blogs we’ll be writing about what Brexit means for IT and IT Law in the coming weeks and months. It looks at the choices facing the UK IT industry around Brexit and Article 50. In the second, Deirdre Moynihan reviews what Brexit is likely to mean…
With the upcoming presidential election on 8 November 2016 and Trump’s growing popularity in the polls over the past few months, it is becoming increasingly important for regulators, banks and other financial institutions to gain a greater understanding of his economic agenda. Well before he launched his current campaign, Trump attacked increased regulation following the…
On 5 July, JWG hosted their RegTech Capital Markets Conference in London, attracting over 150 attendees from top tier banks, buy-side firms, vendors, lawyers and academics from across the industry. A speech from the FCA’s own Nick Cook at the start of the day told of the clear signs of progress being made and reiterated…
Data standards was one of several key themes at the JWG RegTech Capital Markets Conference on 5 July 2016. Conversations about regulatory data standards centre on the need for alignment of data obligations and standards, data protection issues, infrastructure legacy issues and the acquisition and ownership of clean, valid and robust data that can be…
The push for increased transparency following the financial crisis has had a visible impact on the financial services industry. Many regulations have created similar, but slightly different, requirements, in particular across the Atlantic. Increased - but uncoordinated - demand on data, and proof of process in different formats and languages, without proper impact assessments conducted…
By January 2018, European legislation will have significantly changed the financial services sector. The sheer volume of transactions, products and firms affected by new regulation means that we can say goodbye to the trading landscape we currently know. In particular, new rules under MiFID II will impact how and where market participants execute trades. All…
So, it’s official. The voting public of the United Kingdom have made their decision and, with a 52% majority, the result is final – the UK has declared that it wants to leave the European Union. Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen the polls fluctuating wildly and the odds of leaving grew determinedly, sending…
In our response to the FCA’s call for input on RegTech, we recommended framing the thinking via the RegTech domains to help enable the prioritisation of new technological solutions in the context of external regulatory circumstances. As we have stressed before, RegTech is about the application of technology to solve a specific regulatory problem, not…
With both sides of the Brexit debate feeling the heat, and the countdown timer running out of sand, there is less than a week before the voting public of the United Kingdom converge on the ballot stations to decide whether they see a future in the European Union or whether they would rather bring to an…
The revised European Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) looms over the regulatory horizon like an oncoming storm in the financial services industry. Aiming to improve the safety and transparency of financial markets, MiFID II reaches far beyond investment banks, impacting asset managers, commodity firms and OTC brokers and dealers too. In terms of…
On 25 May, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) reported on jurisdictional progress in implementing their policy framework for strengthening oversight and regulation of shadow banking entities. Shadow banking emerged as a financial stability priority following the events of the financial crisis in 2008, when a number of non-bank financial entities entered into liquidation due to…
In November, the Financial Conduct Authority issued a call for input on facilitating the development and adoption of RegTech, or the use of technology to solve critical problems in compliance. JWG argued that new and proven tools can be employed but, to do so, the industry must first collaborate in a ‘RegTech commons’ to set…
At JWG’s RegTech conference, now less than a month away, our second panel* will bring experts together to discuss the matter of aligning reporting obligations using RegTech to ease the regulatory burden. Panellists confirmed so far include Adedayo Banwo (Legal Counsel at Deutsche Bank, London Branch, former Counsel in the Office of General Counsel at…
Last week, JWG had the pleasure of taking part in a podcast to discuss the recent publication of our Brexit research paper. Hosted by Julia Schieffer from DerivSource, the podcast, which can be found here, takes an in-depth look at some of the most pertinent issues raised in the report. The discussion focused on the…
The Fundamental Review of the Trading Book (FRTB) final text was published in January 2016 by the Basel Committee (BCBS). The aims of the FRTB BCBS standards are to better factor market risk into trading book risk models, and to prevent banks moving instruments between the trading book and the banking book in order to…
This month, the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts released its forty-first report of session 2015-16 which looks at ‘financial services mis-selling: regulation and redress’. The Committee is tasked with ensuring value for money of public spending and generally holds the government and its civil servants to account for the delivery of public services.…
With JWG’s RegTech conference coming up on 5th July, we thought it wise to spell out a few of the most pressing issues up for discussion on the day. Our first panel – Unblocking the ecosystem* - will provide a comprehensive review of the barriers to RegTech development and adoption. On this topic, we have…
In a week which has seen cyber-risk cement itself on the agendas of regulators across the world, we’ve witnessed action in the trading space with plenty of developments occurring in Europe’s markets in financial instruments’ overhaul, as well as a concerted effort to rethink the way in which regulations and regulators work in the financial services industry.…
With 23 June just around the corner and a vote deciding the future of the UK in the EU on the horizon, we at JWG have issued a ground-breaking report today - Brexit: changing out the engine of finance. The report finds significant technical and leadership challenges ahead in the event of a decision to…
On Monday the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published opinions on the Regulatory Technical Standards for position limits (RTS 21) and non-equity transparency (RTS 20) under MiFID II, in response to the Commission’s request to ESMA in April to modify the draft RTS issued in September 2015. This article will detail the updates on…
Date: April 2016 Dear fellow board members, As the Financial Conduct Authority's acting head has so rightly pointed out, sustainability is the key to pleasing our shareholders and delighting our customers with a global approach to compliance. Since taking the seat which oversees our global compliance function in 2008, I've watched in horror as G20…
We are pleased to publish the 14th edition of our members only newsletter, RegBeacon. RegBeacon, is now available here. In this quarter we look one of the most contentious periods since the G20 agreed the regulatory reform agenda seven years ago. As politicians, courts, regulators, and firms wrestle with the same issues, we see a…
In November the FCA issued a call for input on RegTech. JWG argued that new and proven tools can be employed but, to do so, the debate must be reframed as a ‘RegTech commons’ for the market to take off. We assembled top technologists from 14 leading firms with the FCA under Chatham house rule…
A vote in favour of Brexit in the UK will have huge repercussions for the financial services sector. The issues of political sovereignty, economic benefits, market upheaval or immigration aside, the consequences for the people within financial services will be huge. Whether it is their job or how they are supervised, Brexit will require a…
We were pleased to speak at the Asset Control User Conference on Tuesday about the challenges of using RegTech in the context of comprehensive MiFID II data requirements. JWG’s CEO, PJ Di Giammarino, presented a helicopter view of the regulatory landscape ahead of us, an approach to getting the cost of the data under control.…
On 24 March, as part of the UK’s effort to set rules to transpose the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II), the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) set out its proposals in its first consultation paper. The application deadline for MiFID II/R has been delayed by one-year to 3 January 2018, with just the European…
Last week was an embarrassing week around the globe for a number of high profile politicians, sports personalities, multinationals, law firms, the rich and the famous. The leak of the Panama papers - a data leak of almost 11.5 million documents, concerning the tax affairs of many - brings into sharp focus an agenda that…
On 1 April 2016, the European Commission’s Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/467 relating to Solvency II – the European risk-based capital regime – was published into the Official Journal of the EU. This covers the new risk charges imposed on insurers’ equity and debt investment in infrastructure projects. Based on advice from the European Insurance and…