RegTech Intelligence
With the world’s most systemic banks having made it through the first round of invasive living wills in 2012, regulators now have their sights on the Financial Market Infrastructure (FMI). Central Counterparties (CCPs), payments systems and exchanges will have a lot to do in 2013 and could do well to heed some lessons from their…
The UK’s Foresight Commission report on HFT has finally heard the industry’s call for clear, shared data standards across the financial system. However, it remains to be seen whether Europe - or the world - has the stomach to realise this vision. After a series of dramatic computer trading glitches across the globe, most recently…
2012 could well go down as a turning point for the industry. Billions in fines have raised consciousness of the need for better financial crime processes, systems and controls. Regulators have found sanctions breaches, anti-money laundering deficiencies and bribery failures – and will likely to continue to do so as they examine historical compliance. We…
Managing, aggregating and maintaining risk data used to be a box-ticking exercise with easily achievable targets. In 2013, landmark new global requirements mean firms will face a big step up. Over the past few years, regulation in the area of risk management information (MI) was fairly basic. In 2011, the FSA, like their US cousins,…
Finally, after months of anticipation, European Commission President José-Manuel Barroso outlined his “decisive deal”: a big picture vision of an ideal, sound roadmap for Europe’s financial future. The EC proposes to create a single supervisory mechanism for banks in the euro area – starting on 1 January 2013. Under the proposals the European Central Bank…
Europe’s first Capital Requirements Regulation report is imminent – even through the European Parliament has yet to pass the act. Now regulators need policy alignment to save the industry €24.2 billion. In July, JWG’s new research highlighted that regulatory standards were critical to saving €24.2 billion. After conducting an extensive survey of 80+ people in…
The G20 says OTC regulation was to be finalised by end 2012. But, with at least 34,000 more pages of regulation expected by 2016 from the US alone, firms need to upgrade their BAU. Following the G20’s meeting in April 2009, the pathforward for regulation on OTC derivatives seemed clear. In the shadow of the…
The industry has been waiting for the “high-level” opinions of the Liikanen Report, and its prescriptions for reform of the turbulent European banking sector. The reforms, while suggestions rather than binding Policy (as Barnier continues to remind everyone) call for huge changes to how European banks operate. The biggest development of these is a Volcker-style…
The Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (SEC, FINRA, NYSE) has released an assessment of 19 firms regarding their controls to prevent misuse of material, non-public information. While not legally binding, this development is important because this is the first comprehensive statement in years regarding a regulatory view of a firms systems and controls for…
When the G20 first revealed its plans in April 2009, the scale and scope of new reforms was all encompassing. Now, we are seeing how serious the regulatory community is about them. The battle to know your customer provides a first glimpse of just how seriously the industry will take the new reforms. At the…
In their latest landscape assessment of Basel III, the EBA came to a conclusion regarding a problem the industry has been grappling with for a long time: rules that aren’t detailed enough lead to uneven outcomes in data reporting, aggregation and assessment. The report finds that, while data quality from national regulators has improved and…
Thanks to technological hiccup after technological hiccup, High Frequency Trading (HFT) remains a permanent fixture in the financial press. With each blip, regulators and politicians promise to regulate HFT, but how they are going to put effective controls in place is still an open question. Despite the noise, the issues with HFT remain the same.…
SIFI assessment criteria are becoming increasingly stratified and are coming to financial institutions near you. Higher capital surcharges, ring fencing, ‘unplugging’ and new living will reports are all parts of a solution to combat ‘too big to fail.’ Some economists contend that the banks that are too-big-to-fail enjoy a lower cost of capital because they…
Most of what the MEPs voted into law in July required ESMA to define exactly what they meant in their record keeping demands legislated through EMIR. Unfortunately, a few clauses slipped through the net in the drafting process… One of these was regarding record keeping which, according to experts, means that, as of 16 August,…