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Regulatory News - Archive (May to August 2007) Follow the links below for regulatory news... |
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| 30/08/2007 | Pandemic Risk – Last chance to register for US tests Starting on September 24th for three weeks, The Financial Banking Information Infrastructure Committee and the Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council is conducting a pandemic flu exercise for the US financial services sector... |
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| 28/08/2007 | Markets – better modify sub-prime loans rather than foreclose A US senator, Charles Schumar, has called on accounting firms to help in securitised mortgage investors to reschedule or otherwise modify their loans rather than force them into being foreclosed... |
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| 20/08/2007 | Sarbanes-Oxley – are US firms getting over-cautious? Many have claimed that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 has reduced the risk-taking in US companies to a excessively low level... |
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| 16/08/2007 | MiFID – Outsourcing continues to be an issue A recent survey by City law firm Field Fisher Waterhouse has indicated that a significant percentage of outsourcing agreements signed by MiFID-impacted firms still fail to comply with the basic requirements of the directive... |
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| 13/08/2007 | Credit Risk – revisiting the Basel II models The markets are in turmoil - £75 billion was wiped off London stocks last week, with the financial institutions taking the brunt of this; liquidity in credit markets is drying up to the extent that central banks had to inject $120 million ... |
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| 09/08/2007 | MiFID – delays start to creep in With less than three months to go, the readiness of the EU for MiFID is looking far from convincing. According to the European Commission’s (EC) own website, only seven of the twenty-seven EU member states have notified the EC that their national regulations are ready for MiFID... |
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| 05/08/2007 | Solvency II – driving medium cap insurers to merge Last month the European Commission released its Level 1 draft for the new capital adequacy directive, Solvency II. It should be no surprise therefore that the level of activity in the merger and acquisition field has increased considerably... |
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| 02/08/2007 | Basel II – failing to prevent high-risk fund losses? Sean Egan of new-breed US ratings agency, Egan-Jones Ratings, has raised the question of whether Basel II is providing sufficient protection against current developments in global mortgage lending... |
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| 30/07/2007 | Regulation – FSA to make individual competence tests simpler The FSA, on Friday, confirmed the introduction of a more outcome-focused and flexible Training and Competence (T & C) regime, in part, driven by the requirements of MiFID, and including a new, shorter, simpler and more principles-based T & C Sourcebook... |
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| 26/07/2007 | Markets – Barclays in Chinese risk management deal In an unprecedented foray into global financial markets, the Chinese State-owned bank, China Development Bank (CDB), announced it had bought a 3.1% share in Britain’s third largest lender, Barclays... |
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| 23/07/2007 | Basel II – US regulators agree to go with the mainstream on implementation The four US national regulators reached agreement last Friday regarding the implementation of Basel II in the US resolving major outstanding issues... |
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| 20/07/2007 | Basel II – critical, says US Federal Reserve The US Federal Reserve, one of the US’s four national regulators, came out strongly in support of Basel II in a July 12th presentation by Randall S Kroszner... |
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| 16/07/2007 | Solvency II – Level 1 draft directive released, but a way to go yet Last week the EC released its 367-page proposal for the Level 1 version of the new Solvency II Directive for insurance and reinsurance firms, together with a document of 44 FAQs... |
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| 12/07/2007 | Ethical Risk – New standards for UK Auditors to be developed The UK's Auditing Practices Board is updating its ethical standards for auditors to ensure these are consistent with changes in the law arising from the EU's Statutory Audit Directive... |
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| 09/07/2007 | Solvency II – another problem for outsourcers? The Association of British Insurers has commented on the potential adverse impact of outsourcing on the calculation of Solvency Capital Requirements (SCR), as proposed in the EU's new Solvency II directive... |
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| 05/07/2007 | Regulation – Experts meet on transatlantic regulation Last week, experts in financial services regulation met in Frankfurt in a symposium organised by the Institute of International Finance (IIF) on Effective Regulation in the Transatlantic Market-place... |
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| 02/07/2007 | SEPA - VocaLink and banks to provide pan-European service To mark the formal completion of the merger of payment providers, Voca and LINK, the new company, VocaLink, today announced that it is launching Europe’s first independent pan-European payment service... |
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| 29/06/2007 | Regulation – US searches for reverse gear US authorities appear to be ready to admit that regulation and reporting based on a rigid rules-base structure, exemplified by the original interpretation of Sarbanes-Oxley, has gone too far... |
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| 25/06/2007 | MiFID – LSE unveils new offerings, FSA to release new advice The London Stock Exchange (LSE) has gone on the offensive to ensure it post-MiFID leadership. On Thursday it released a brochure and a 67-page services description pack detailing its MiFID offerings... |
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| 21/06/2007 | Sarbanes-Oxley – PCAOB still not living in a material world Materiality is a dreaded word in any legal case and Sarbanes-Oxley has been no exception. The original documentation from the guardians of Sarbox, the PCAOB, talked about material and significant when referring to events likely to have an impact on a company’s financial returns... |
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| 18/06/2007 | Operational Risk – US Guidelines released on Electronic Communications in Investment Firms NYSE Euronext and NASD, last Friday jointly released proposed guidelines to help member companies identify principles to take into account when developing supervisory systems and procedures for electronic communications... |
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| 14/06/2007 | MiFID – best execution still a concern – and the Boat sails on Best execution requirements under MiFID remain the "biggest piece of work" in firms' MiFID projects according to the MiFID mid-tier special interest group, the Financial Services Discussion Club... |
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| 11/06/2007 | Basel II – Rating agencies evaluate Pillar 2 risks Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's is reported as saying that, from January 2008, it will start evaluating the amount of risk capital set aside by banks for the so-called Pillar 2 risks – those risks not covered in Pillar 1 risk capital calculations... |
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| 07/06/2007 | Basel II – China publishes operational risk management guidelines The Chinese regulator (the Chinese Banking Regulatory Commission) has issued its "Guidelines on Operational Risk Management of Commercial Banks" in preparation for the planned adoption of Basel II guidelines from 2010... |
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| 05/06/2007 | Basel II – American state regulators want their say in capital rules The four US federal regulators have been struggling to come to a common understanding on the implementation of Basel II. Now the supervisors in the state banks are objecting to being excluded from these deliberations... |
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| 31/05/2007 | Basel II – FSA publishes Pillar 2 assessment framework The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has become the first national financial services supervisor to publish details of its Basel II Pillar 2 assessment framework, the Supervisory Review and Evaluation Process (SREP)... |
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| 29/05/2007 | Pandemic Risk - US Financial Sector to test Pandemic Response Ability The US's Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council for Critical Infrastructure Protection and Homeland Security (FSSCC) has announced that the US financial services industry would run a multi-week, sector-wide exercise to test its ability to respond to a pandemic... |
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| 24/05/2007 | Sarbanes-Oxley – new 404 guidance approved, but no extension for small business After three years of usage, the US's Securities and Exchange Commission has approved a new set of guidelines for Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 - internal controls over financial reporting... |
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| 21/05/2007 | Markets – Now G7 body comes out for hedge fund regulation The Financial Stability Forum (FSF) has issued a report recommending action by financial authorities, as well as market players, to strengthen the protection against potential systemic risks relating to hedge funds... |
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| 17/05/2007 | MiFID - FSA confirms guidance on outsourcing The FSA has confirmed that its application of the European Union's MiFID rules in its supervision of outsourcing by firms will be based on the interpretation and guidance of the MiFID Connect group... |
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| 14/05/2007 | Markets – EU takes lighter touch approach to hedge fund regulation In a meeting on the 8th May, the European Union finance ministers ignored pressure from some member states and decided against specific regulation of hedge funds... |
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| 10/05/2007 | Treating Customers Fairly – FSA progress report shows 59% of small firms missed deadline The Financial Services Authority’s latest progress report on Treating Customers Fairly (TCF) shows that this is being taken seriously by large firms but that compliance is failing lower down the markets... |
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| 08/05/2007 | MiFID – Exchanges in November 1st free-for-all? MiFID may be seen by many City brokers as a fundamental pain but, as the implementation date comes closer, it is apparent that markets and exchanges may be the players that will see the greatest upheaval... |
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| 03/05/2007 | Markets – NY Federal Reserve warns on hedge fund risks The New York Federal Reserve has issued a warning that hedge funds could be posing the greatest risks to the markets since the crisis of Long-Term Capital Management in 1998... |
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© Chase Cooper 2008 |
