Regulation

There’s a whole load of things we’re grappling with today, and not many people seem to know how to grapple with them well. There’s a challenge for example regarding definitions. Defining what is “systemically important” versus what is not. Defining what is “commercial trade” versus speculative. Defining appropriate levels of …

At the Euro Finance conference in Frankfurt this week was a stream all about transaction banking which yours truly attended. The great and the good of our transaction world were also in attendance, as demonstrated by this short list of speakers: Albert Lechner, Vorstand Zahlungsverkehr, Betriebs-Center für Banken AG, München …

I was thinking a lot about the recent news that the FSA has ordered all mobile telephone calls to be monitored for any trader or investment banker using a corporate mobile telephone. Great. It doesn’t seem like such a great idea though, as traders and bankers will just switch to …

So this morning RBS announce losses of £1.4 billion this morning, with various headlines reporting the news: RBS losses shrink on sharp fall in bad loans - The Telegraph RBS Narrows Third-Quarter Loss as Provisions Decline - Business Week The Royal Bank of Scotland sinks £1.4bn into the red – BBC Admittedly RBS has …

I recently chaired a conference focused upon FXMM, or foreign exchange money markets for those unfamiliar. It’s a strange territory full of hedging and algo’s, but the bit of the day that really caught my attention was when Heather Pilley from the OTC Derivatives and Post-Trade Policy Division of the …

The FSClub released the outcome of this year's survey on the Payment Services Directive (PSD) and Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) this morning, sponsored by Logica, Dovetail and Earthport. This is the second year of the survey, and builds on last year's results.   Download the full survey report (2MB …

I mentioned that I spent last Friday morning with card fraud and security experts. The conversation began with a wide view of what’s happening, and a focus upon PCI DSS Standard 2.0, which is yet to be published. The Payment Card Industry (PCI) Securities Standards Council (SSC) have developed new …

In the last of my blog entries on capital markets regulations and restructuring, I thought it worth mopping up best execution and global trading platforms, as these were referenced in the first item as a key part of future market change. Oh, and if you missed them, here are the …

One of the big topics in capital markets is intra-day liquidity and post-trade transparency. Such discussions are far more noticeable now because the whole reason for this crisis, according to some, was the loss of trust between counterparties. That loss of trust was based upon counterparties not having enough liquidity …

After the earlier discussions of flash crashes and HFT, on to dark pools. It was interesting that a colleague made the statement this week that all orders could be seen on US exchanges before they are filled as that may be true for some markets, but dark pools exist to …

I got into a bit of trouble yesterday, as various colleagues told me that the discussion on the flash crash was inaccurate and full of errors. A key issue was the discussion of flash orders being part of the problem as, apart from a rare exception such as Direct Edge, …

I gave my first presentation for a while last week on capital markets and what’s top of mind. Here are the headlines of key areas of focus: High Frequency Trading (HFT) Dark Pools Best Execution Post-Trade Transparency Global Trading Platforms MiFID II I’ll review these areas in more depth during …

I had a reach out from Patrick Young, investment advisor, author of "The Exchange Manifesto" and regular commentator on capital markets. Patrick co-authored an opinion piece with Victor Papazov, the founder and former CEO and chairman of the Bulgarian Stock Exchange, in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. He's given me …

I just got this in my intray from Woodbine Associates, an American research firm that works with the exchange, broker/dealer, asset manager, hedge fund and technology vendor communities. It’s really interesting and talks about the impact the new American reforms, known as the Dodd-Frank Legislation, and how this law will …

I will not spend much more time on this, but was irritated by the CEBS stress tests last week and so one more quick note. The reason CEBS, the European Commission and European Central Bank gave for not including the scenario of a sovereign default in the stress tests is …