Financial Services Regulation

This network is for financial professionals interested in staying up to date on financial services regulation happening anywhere in the world. CFOs, bankers, fund managers, treasurers welcome.

Retired Member 

Interview with FSA sets record straight on mobile recording

Last week a survey commissioned by Orange Business UK announced that eight out of ten UK medium and large financial firms were unaware of the Financial Service Authority’s (FSA) impending mobile recording regulations. While this conclusion does seem surprising to say the least, there is, nonetheless, still some ‘misunderstanding’ in the market. One...

03 October 2011 /security

Retired Member 

The world's first hapless mobile call recording solution

Buying something because you have to is no fun. In this regard, many of today’s first and second-generation mobile call recording systems currently being implemented by investment banks are, frankly, dull. They may help you meet the FSA phone recording regulations. (Provided you pick the right one.) They may move your governance controls up a notch...

28 September 2011

Retired Member 

Five myths relating to mobile recording for FSA compliance

Speaking to prospects and customers about their experiences in trialing and using different mobile-recording systems, I’m surprised by some of the myths that I hear. If you’ve still not implemented a mobile recording system to meet the Financial Service Authority’s 14 November deadline for the recording of mobile calls, then here’s a few debunked:...

22 September 2011 /security

Retired Member 

Will FSA mobile regulations render rogue traders obsolete?

Oh to be in the UBS compliance team this week. With news that another “rogue trader” has slipped under the radar in such spectacular fashion—at a time when the world’s banking system is in such a fragile state—the spotlight is thrown yet again on governance and oversight. Whether as deterrent or detector, the introduction of the Financial Services...

19 September 2011 /wholesale

Retired Member 

Mobile recording: Should compliance officers be frightened?

Last week saw the UK Financial Service Authority’s (FSA) latest win in its war against market abuse when it announced that it had imposed an £8m fine on Swift Trade for layering—a practice of placing large orders that the trader has no intention of completing. This is the eleventh insider-dealing conviction since March 2009 when Hector Sants, the F...

06 September 2011 /wholesale

Gaurav Handa Director Marketing at Oracle Financial Services

The Road to Basel III: Navigating the Curves Ahead

Financial institutions in Europe and North America will be eager to turn the page on August. Far from the anticipated doldrums of summer, we witnessed a return to stomach-churning market volatility, fueled in part by growing concerns about sovereign solvency and banks’ exposure to sovereign debt. The return to volatility, coming on the heels of t...

02 September 2011 /regulation

Retired Member 

Summer time and the trading is easy... next year

FSA mobile recording compliance and the working holiday. It’s August and the City has that almost peaceful summer feel, as its workers migrate to hotter climes for their “Worlidays”. Worlidays, a name created by Lucy Kellaway describes the sort of holidays many of us take these days, not least traders and customer teams in investment banking: not ...

31 August 2011 /wholesale

Gaurav Handa Director Marketing at Oracle Financial Services

European Banks Prepare for Possible Basel III Redux

It has been said, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” and as recent events have demonstrated, many European banks held too little loss-absorbing capital to allow for the risks being run not only in extreme adverse conditions, but in some of the more vanilla activities, as well. The Irish mortgage market is a prime examp...

05 August 2011 /regulation

Retired Member 

EU cracks down on market abuse while US leaves the door open

Earlier this month the Financial Times reported that UK market regulators fined a commodities broker for “market abuse” for the first time—a sign that the Financial Services Authority is cracking down on price manipulation. (http://on.ft.com/iuSz1S) In the US, the banking industry has been captivated by last month’s prosecution of Raj Rajaratnam of...

25 June 2011 /regulation

Gaurav Handa Director Marketing at Oracle Financial Services

Get Ready for a Macroprudential Approach to Regulation

Fed seeks annual U.S. bank stress tests. In his recent address at the 47th Annual Conference on Bank Structure and Competition, Chicago, Chairman Bernanke spoke of initiatives on both sides of the pond to implement a macroprudential approach to financial services supervision and regulation. The Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) and

20 May 2011 /regulation