FCA: One Month to Go till LIBOR Ends

ACA Compliance Group Launches ComplianceAlpha 2.5

ACA Compliance Group (ACA) today announces the launch of ComplianceAlpha 2.5, providing firms with customizable dashboards, automated reports, and the integration of ACA’s Decryptex® trade surveillance and market abuse detection functionality.

Carlo Di Florio, Global Chief Services Officer, ACA Compliance Group, says: “Regulators worldwide are focused on how firms are managing risk and detecting potential misconduct in the extended work from home environment. ComplianceAlpha provides firms with the enhanced holistic surveillance capabilities needed to effectively manage today’s evolving and inter-connected risks and challenges.”

DMA Enhances Compliance Control with SteelEye

SteelEye, the compliance technology and data analytics firm, has been selected by South African brokerage SCM DMA, to help the firm improve its MiFID II transaction reporting.

Regulated by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority in South Africa, DMA provides multi-asset execution, prime brokerage, trading technology and portfolio management solutions to institutional clients and their end customers.
 
“We selected SteelEye because we wanted to facilitate MiFIR reporting solutions for certain institutional clients using DMA services. When noting the offering also included Trade Surveillance and Best Execution, we decided to extend the services with SteelEye in order to take full control of our compliance processes, some of which we had partially outsourced,” explains Peter Johnson, Director (Legal & Compliance) at DMA. “With SteelEye, we can meet multiple regulatory requirements within one platform, utilising the same data set, and get enhanced insight into our operations.”

Singapore Offers Grants to Support RegTech Uptake

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has launched a $26m Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG) designed to help smaller financial services firms adopt technology aimed at streamlining their regulatory data reporting. Although currently only available to banks, the regulator hopes to expand the program to insurers and capital markets intermediaries. The funding will be used to purchase and implement digital solutions from a list of pre-approved managed services providers.

Sopnendu Mohanty, chief fintech officer at the MAS, says: “The co-funding support for the adoption of regulatory reporting solutions will help smaller financial institutions leverage technology to better meet regulatory obligations.”

Morgan Stanley Slapped with $10m in Fines

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has issued Morgan Stanley with a $5 million penalty, citing violations of Regulation SHO, the regulation governing short sales. “Morgan Stanley hedged synthetic exposure to swaps by purchasing or selling the securities referenced in the swaps, and it separated its hedges into two aggregation units—one holding only long positions, and the other holding only short positions,” said the SEC. Morgan Stanley was therefore able to sell its hedges on the long swaps and mark them as “long” sales without concern for Reg SHO’s short sale requirements.

Morgan Stanley neither admitted nor denied the findings, but has accepted the fine and consented to a cease-and-desist order. Separately, the bank also this week received a $5 milion fine from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for failing to comply with swap data reporting obligations.

ESMA Appoints New Chair of CCP Supervisory Committee

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s securities markets regulator, has formally appointed Klaus Löber as Chair of the CCP Supervisory Committee and Nicoletta Giusto and Froukelien Wendt as Independent Members. “The new organisational set-up of the CCP Supervisory Committee will strengthen ESMA’s role in enhancing the safety and efficiency of CCPs both in the EU and in third countries,” said Chairman Steven Maijoor.

The Chair and Independent Members will play an important role in light of the additional regulatory powers granted to ESMA, regarding the supervision of third country CCPs and convergence in the supervision of EU CCPs.

AML Specialist SmartSearch Slams FinCen Leak

John Dobson, CEO at AML experts SmartSearch, has expressed outrage at the revelations contained in the FinCEN files of criminal cash being moved around by the world’s biggest financial institutions, including the UK’s HSBC. “This is nothing short of a betrayal for all those thousands of businesses doing their bit in the global fight against money laundering and financial fraud,” he said.

“If these documents can be believed, one of the world’s biggest banks has effectively turned a blind eye and enabled criminals to take full advantage. These revelations couldn’t have come at a worse time of course, with so many businesses reeling from the ongoing affects of the Covid 19 pandemic, and the extra security threats that has created. Events like these are hugely damaging for the banks involved but also for all the other banks who are trying to stamp out money laundering, and it cannot go unpunished.”

AxiomSL Expands in Europe with New Confinale Partnership

AxiomSL has partnered with Confinale, an IT consulting and software development company specializing in the banking sector, in a move intended to expand the firm’s presence in Switzerland, Germany and Liechtenstein. The collaboration will provide clients including the Swiss National Bank, Financial Markets Authority Liechtenstein, and Bank Centrale du Luxembourg with AxiomSL’s end-to-end risk and regulatory reporting solutions via Confinale’s integration ecosystem. The announcement comes just a few days after VP Bank, one of Liechtenstein’s largest banks, selected AxiomSL’s ControllerView platform as the foundation for compliance across its key centres of operation: Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Singapore and Switzerland.

SEC Approves Final Rules on Proxy Advisors

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has voted to adopt new rules requiring proxy advisors to provide companies with access to their voting advice at the same time as shareholders, following a protracted battle over the regulation of investment firms that has spanned several years. According to the SEC the new rules – which also tighten disclosure requirements for proxy advisors – will ensure that shareholders have “reasonable and timely access to more transparent, accurate and complete information on which to make voting decisions.”

SIX Launches Fully Delegated SFTR Reporting for Swiss Repo Market

The Swiss Stock Exchange’s SFTR reporting services is now live in synchronisation with the introduction of the SFTR regulation. Over 170 clients stand to benefit from this offering. The Swiss Stock Exchange automates the way it provides Unique Transaction Identifiers (UTI) creating a scale offering featuring SFTR-compliant and fully delegated reporting. For the delegated reporting, SIX has partnered with UnaVista, London Stock Exchange Group’s trade repository.

As SFTR is a European regulation, SIX partnered with Comyno, a consultancy firm based in Frankfurt.