The Luxembourg-based European Depositary Bank (EDB, a subsidiary of Apex Group) has chosen Thomas Murray to provide data and monitoring services to its compliance practices, including the use of the vendor’s independent analysis and operational risk data for market and counterparty monitoring. EDB will also undertake Thomas Murray’s central securities depositary and market asset safety risks assessments and participate in its transfer agency monitoring programme.

The UK Government has confirmed plans to introduce new legislation to amend the Benchmarks Regulation to give the FCA more power to manage and direct an orderly wind-down of critical benchmarks such as LIBOR. The new powers proposed will be available where the FCA has found that a critical benchmark is not representative of the market it seeks to measure and representativeness will not be restored.

Mid Atlantic Capital Group has chosen SS&C to automate its FINRA Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) reporting obligations. The Securities and Exchange Commission will require all broker-dealers to report equities and options transaction data to FINRA CAT at the end of the month.  SS&C will monitor, submit and correct transactional data on behalf of Mid Atlantic Capital as part of its full-service offering. The SS&C CAT Reporting Portal is a secure, web-based service that aggregates and enriches broker data across broker’s platforms and translates it into FINRA-compliant CAT reports. The Portal also provides an interactive front-end to enable customers to manage exceptions.

FINRA CAT certified more than 70 firms before the June 8^th certification deadline with SS&C as the CAT Reporting Agent.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is planning a series of virtual peer-to-peer meetups through its Strategic Hub for Innovation and Financial Technology (FinHub), with a focus on engaging the industry to inform regulatory approach. The first theme will be RegTech, with a meeting planned for 6 July, 2020. Anyone currently working on RegTech solutions or implementations is encouraged to attend, and places can be booked here.

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has issued its second-largest fine ever to Commerzbank London due to put anti-money laundering failures 2012 and 2017, which the regulator concluded had “created significant risk”. Although the FCA raised concerns three times during the period, the bank still failed to “take reasonable and effective steps to fix them.”

“Commerzbank London’s failings over several years created a significant risk that financial and other crime might be undetected,” said Mark Steward, the FCA’s executive director of enforcement and market oversight. “Firms should recognise that AML controls are vitally important to the integrity of the UK financial system.”

The bank agreed to resolve the dispute at an early stage, which led to a 30% reduction in the fine.

Denmark’s Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) has reported the country’s largest lender, Danske Bank, for violating the prohibition on market manipulation. The regulator alleges that the bank facilitated “wash trades” (where the same entity both buys and sells securities) between 2016-19, as well as failing to properly monitor and report transactions. Danske’s chief compliance officer Philippe Vollot has admitted that the bank did not have “adequate market monitoring in place”. Last week, the FSA also announced that it would be carrying out a cross-sector AML inspection of transaction monitoring at Danske Bank.

An inspection report of Danske Bank published by the FSA in November 2019 found “significant weaknesses in its governance of IT security and risks.”

SimCorp, a provider of integrated investment management solutions and services including SimCorp Datacare (a data management solution for buyside pricing and reference data), is merging its Central Europe, Southern Europe and UK/Northern Europe/Middle East (UNM) market units, into one integrated EMEA unit. The move is designed to support SimCorp’s growth ambition, by developing closer client relationships across borders and achieving greater scale and agility in key business functions.

The new unit will be headed by Hans Otto Engkilde, the current Managing Director of SimCorp UK/Northern Europe/Middle East, who will lead best practice throughout the merged market unit, with a focus on growing SimCorp’s front office, data management, alternative investments, and client communication offerings.

mBank, Poland’s fourth largest banking group based on assets, has chosen Wolters Kluwer’s OneSumX for Risk Management as its risk software. The mobile digital bank operates across three markets in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The bank will specifically use the Wolters Kluwer’s solution for Asset and Liability Management (ALM) as well as Market Risk and profitability (Funds Transfer Pricing).

The Finantix Product Suite is a modular, API-driven suite of products that can be integrated with existing IT systems. Capita Consulting will become a Finantix certified strategic implementation partner in the UK. In this role Capita Consulting will help clients in the private banking and wealth management sectors design and launch a Finantix platform tailored to their needs. As well as helping Finantix clients select the right mix of capabilities for their needs, Capita Consulting will also advise Finantix on product enhancements across the suite of solutions offered to the UK market.

Specialist RegTech provider Shield has been selected by Microsoft to join its One Commercial Partner (OCP) program, which provides best-of-breed Cloud-based solutions. The partnership means the Shield platform is now available on Microsoft’s App Source and Azure Marketplace.

“With increased remote working and ongoing disruption to many business operations because of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, many firms are looking at their options for maintaining regulatory compliance and surveillance during these challenging times,” says Eran Noam, Global VP of Sales and Marketing at Shield. “As an early supporter of the Microsoft platform in the RegTech sphere, Shield is perfectly placed to help regulated firms meet these needs, as they switch to Microsoft Teams as a key part of their journey towards cloud services.”