Regulation

Today, the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development has issued a loan of just under 6.5 million euros to a company that buys bad and doubtful debt from banks. It's a token amount in the great scheme of things. The big question is what comes next?

This article is going to make a lot of people very angry. Sadly, those that are going to be angry are those that have been found out; those that should be angry - the consumers who have been misled and the tax payers who have supported the rampant charge into FinTech support by regulators and, even, the banks who have had their business models and even management plans disrupted, in the true sense of the word, by the host of millennial-targeting banks that pretended they were not banks, supported in that subterfuge by regulators - are not going to be angry.

Morningstar has been mounting a persistent advertising campaign on LinkedIn recently. It it, it promotes its due diligence services. An announcement by the USA's Securities and Exchange Commission raises several questions, not the least of which is "who or what is Morningstar"?

31 December 2020 is a Thursday. 1 November is, therefore, Friday. The moment that is neither of them, midnight, is a pivotal moment in the history of financial services. It is at that moment that South Africa's banks become the banks that say "no." No to cheques that is. Anyone to tries to present a cheque after that moment, will be turned away.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has developed a two-year roadmap to promote Regtech adoption in the Hong Kong banking sector, as laid out in a White Paper entitled “Transforming Risk Management and Compliance: Harnessing the Power of Regtech”.

(HKMA Media Release 3 November 2020 17:45 HK time)

In his blog (here), Nigel Morris-Cotterill talks of chickens coming home to roost, a lack of attention by regulators too anxious to become FinTech hubs and the constraints on prudential management of FinTechs operating across borders, especially under the EU's central regulatory regime.

AUSTRAC, Australia’s anti money-laundering and terrorism financing regulator, has today applied to the Federal Court of Australia for civil penalty orders against Westpac Banking Corporation (Westpac).

The civil penalty orders relate to systemic non-compliance with the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (AML/CTF Act). AUSTRAC alleges Westpac contravened the AML/CTF Act on over 23 million occasions.

The Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) has issued a warning about a fraudulent website.

A financial adviser has closed its "artificial intelligence" driven advisory system. The quality of advice and the supervision of the system were both causes for concern by the regulator in a landmark case about the deployment of computer-driven, what used to be called "expert", systems with implications across the entire spectrum of financial and other services including customer due diligence in relation to financial crime risk management. It's a potential game-changer for the rapid rise of lightly regulated fintechs.

Yesterday, it was reported that a former branch manager with National Australia Bank had been convicted of fraud and that other prosecutions were in the pipeline. Today, ASIC, the Australian financial regulator, has said that it has issued proceedings against the bank. Is it a coincidence? One thinks not.

Press release: 20 March 2019 (verbatim)

The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and European Banking Authority (EBA) are announcing today that they have agreed a template Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The template sets out the expectations for supervisory cooperation and information-sharing arrangements between UK and EU/EEA national authorities.

A temporary permissions regime was put in place in January after the House of Commons rejected the May/EU deal. Exit day may have been postponed for a short time but increasingly there is a possibility that contingency plans must be made. Time is running out to act under the regime, unless the FCA chooses to extend it. The deadline is, as of now, 28th March 2019.

UBS AG (UBS) has been fined GBP27,599,400 by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for failings relating to 135.8 million transaction reports between November 2007 and May 2017.

In a speech to a conference on the 12 March, 2019, to mark the 20th Anniversary of the Financial Stability Institute, Mr Agustin Carstens, General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements, set out what the FSI has achieved and objectives for the future.

It's not enough but it's a start. And it's too little, too late. The USA's Federal Reserve Board no doubt hopes that by taking a strong line against two individuals that it can diminish the damage done to Goldman Sachs over its participation in the Malaysian financial case relating to 1MDB. And the fact that it's taken so long for the Fed to act doesn't cast the regulator in an especially good light, either.