Trump Moves to Send Mortgage Giants Back to Private Sector

By Jim Tankersley, Alan Rappeport, and Lola Fadulu September 5, 2019, The New York Times The Trump administration on Thursday unveiled a long-awaited plan to end federal control of two mortgage giants that had been bailed out by taxpayers...

Fed’s Quarles Floats New Tool to Combat Credit Crunches

By Lalita Clozel September 5, 2019, The Wall Street Journal The Federal Reserve is weighing whether to activate a dormant tool to combat credit crunches in a downturn as part of a broader overhaul of big-bank-capital and stress-testing requirements....

European watchdog warns on bond fund liquidity risk

By Chris Flood September 5, 2019, Financial Times As many as four in 10 European high-yield bond funds would not have enough liquid assets immediately available to meet investor withdrawals in the event of a market shock, according to...

Brexit drives European companies away from UK banks, report warns

By Samuel Agini September 5, 2019, Financial News Brexit is increasingly driving European companies to turn their backs on U.K. banks in areas such as foreign exchange hedging, cash management, and trade finance, according to a new report. Connecticut-based...

U.S. Treasury expected to unveil Fannie, Freddie plan in coming days: analysts

By Michelle Price September 4, 2019, Reuters The Trump administration’s blueprint for reforming the U.S. housing system is expected to be unveiled in the coming days, according to Washington analysts, marking a key step toward overhauling mortgage giants Fannie...

SMCR starting to impact company culture

By Alice Tchernookova September 5, 2019, Practice Insight from IFLR By year-end, the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SMCR) – which many in the industry say has already began to impact company culture – will be extended to all...

Compliance Training Failing to Deliver Meaningful Outcomes

September 4, 2019, Regulation Asia Efforts to shape employee behavior through compliance training have failed to deliver meaningful outcomes, says a new report from Quinlan & Associates. About USD 1.06 trillion has been wiped out in the banking industry...

An old fight over margin protections rears its head

By Robert Mackenzie Smith September 4, 2019, Risk Not all things consigned to the history books remain there. More than five years ago, a group of U.S. derivatives exchanges and regulatory bodies tried to clamp down on margin protections...

German consultation positions FIRDS as potential golden source

By James Thursfield September 4, 2019, Global Investor Group The results of a German Ministry of Finance industry consultation, published last week, in response to amendments and revisions to MiFID II concludes that the Financial Instrument Reference Data System...

How U.S. Banks Took Over the World

By Liz Hoffman and Telis Demos September 4, 2019, The Wall Street Journal When two of Europe’s corporate titans sat down to negotiate a merger this year, they called American banks. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc....

Christine Lagarde Pledges to Review ECB’s Negative Rates

By Tom Fairless September 4, 2019, The Wall Street Journal Christine Lagarde, the likely next president of the European Central Bank, held out an olive branch to the bank’s German critics at a confirmation hearing on Wednesday, promising to...

SIFMA urges SEC to press pause on disclosure proposals

By Kyle Glazier September 3, 2019, The Bond Buyer A group representing many large underwriters wants the Securities and Exchange Commission to rethink the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s decision not to propose a “tiered” system for disclosures required under...

Absence of trader ID disclosures leading to MiFID II reporting failure

By Rebekah Tunstead September 3, 2019, bobsguide Uncertainty regarding reference data – particularly the identification of individual traders or decision makers in transaction reporting – is preventing compliance with the second Market in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II), according...

The World’s Central Banks Have Lost Credibility With Markets

By Anchalee Worrachate and David Goodman September 4, 2019, Bloomberg Investors are increasingly signaling they don’t buy the inflation-boosting policies central banks are selling, with some even fretting stimulus may do more harm than good. Falling expectations for consumer-price...

ECB package could include rate cut, tiering, new guidance: sources

By Balazs Koranyi and Frank Siebelt September 3, 2019, Reuters ECB policymakers are leaning toward a stimulus package that includes a rate cut, a beefed-up pledge to keep rates low for longer and compensation for banks over the side-effects...

New York Fed Lays Out Projections for Future of Fed Holdings

By Michael S. Derby September 3, 2019, The Wall Street Journal The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet, which has recently stopped shrinking, may once again start growing later this year, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Tuesday. The...

Revealed: FRTB impact three times higher than expected

By Samuel Wilkes September 2, 2019, Risk Final market risk capital rules will lead to a higher increase in bank capital requirements than previous estimates given by international regulators earlier this year, an undisclosed industry study has found. The...

MiFID II: lack of consolidated tape makes traders more conservative

By Alice Tchernookova September 2, 2019, Practice Insight from IFLR The lack of standardised, reliable data in Europe affects the attitude of traders, according to trading sources. The discussion on whether or not a consolidated tape should be in...

FINRA CAT Lays Out Security Plans

By Emilia David August 30, 2019, Waters Technology The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), which was named the plan processor for building the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) in February, laid out its planned security measures for the database as...

ISDA Create completes first swap negotiation

By James Thursfield August 30, 2019, Global Investor Group Commerzbank and Nomura have achieved an industry milestone by completing the first fully electronic negotiation of swap documentation. The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) on Thursday said German bank...

Buy-side face operational risks if they don’t prepare for Libor transition

By Charles Gubert August 30, 2019, The Trade Having spent the last few years prepping for MiFID II, most European asset managers are now busy concentrating their resources on applying the finishing touches to no-deal Brexit planning. A handful...

Treasury Proposes Guidance Clarifying Tax Consequences of Libor Transition

By Kate Davidson August 29, 2019, The Wall Street Journal The Treasury Department issued proposed guidance Wednesday clarifying the tax consequences of eliminating the London interbank offered rate, a move that could help ease the transition to a new...

Bank of England eyes reform to make long-term investment more attractive

By Huw Jones September 2, 2019, Reuters More realistic curbs on investors wanting to pull cash from funds could make investing in infrastructure more attractive and bolster economic growth, a senior Bank of England (BOE) official said on Monday....

Will GSE reform get some clarity from long-awaited blueprints?

By Hannah Lang August 29, 2019, American Banker The mortgage industry will be looking for answers when the Trump administration unveils its plans to shake up the housing finance system and end the conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie...

Client incentives for CCP default auctions get thumbs up

By James Thursfield August 29, 2019, Global Investor Group Clearing houses and participants have defended the existing incentives for clients in central counterparty (CCP) default auctions after they were brought into question as part of an industry-wide discussion launched...

Global banks fear Hong Kong frontrunning FRTB

By Blake Evans-Pritchard August 28, 2019, Risk Hong Kong’s insistence that it will stick to the Basel Committee’s timetable for implementing the Fundamental Review of the Trading Book (FRTB) is causing a headache for global banks with subsidiaries in...

Libor transition: banks consider eating spread

By Thomas Helm August 29, 2019, Practice Insight from IFLR Who covers the basis point spread between Libor and alternative rates is a key talking point in the industry, especially in the retail loan space. The Associated British Ports...

MiFID II in the U.S.: firms explore research unbundling options

By John Crabb August 29, 2019, Practice Insight from IFLR U.S. market participants are unsure about local regulators’ position on a key piece of E.U. financial market legislation. The no-action relief letter issued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange...

DFMs still grappling with regulatory overhauls

By Dave Baxter August 29, 2019, FTAdviser Advisers rarely have a kind word for regulators, and sometimes with good reason. From investment regulations to the likes of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, a swathe of new obligations can...

The Future of Cloud Regulation: The Authorities Take Notice

By Joanna Wright August 28, 2019, Waters Technology On February 28, 2017, Amazon Web Services (AWS) suffered a massive outage due to high error rates with its Simple Storage Service (S3) in the US-EAST-1 corridor. The disruption took...