The Senior Managers Regime for the banking sector and the Senior Insurance Managers Regime both come into force today. The new regimes will hold individuals working at all levels within relevant firms to appropriate standards of conduct and ensure that senior managers are held to account for misconduct that falls within their area of responsibility. 
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Arjen van Berkum

Recently I wrote a blog on the top 15 jobs most likely to disappear. Quite a few readers asked me why bankers were not on that list. A valid and logical question. Technology is changing fast and the possibilities tech solutions bring us are innumerable, but still the world is not ready yet for an economic paradigm without bankers. Unfortunately, I might add. Fintech has set in the unbundling of banking, but are not making banks obsolete (yet). Is it in the first place because money exists? Because our payment infrastructure is too complex to disrupt? Here’s why it will take longer for banker jobs to become extinct.

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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) recently published a report setting out its findings from its thematic review of the fair treatment of long-standing customers in life insurance as announced in its Business Plan 2014/15. Continue reading…

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has banned Michael Ross Curtler, a former trader at Deutsche Bank AG, from the UK financial services industry for lacking honesty and integrity following a criminal conviction for fraud in the US.
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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has today announced that it will pilot the publication of general insurance ‘scorecards’ on a small number of products. The FCA will collect data from firms and publish it in an easily accessible format on its website. Any interested parties including consumer groups will be able to use the information to compare both products and firms.

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Velocimetrics today announces the release of advanced functionality that will considerably enhance its client’s abilities to improve the way in which they assess market data quality.

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The Financial Stability Board (FSB) today published a letter from Mark Carney, Chair of the FSB, which was sent to G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in advance of their meeting in Shanghai on 26‑27 February.
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by Andy Scherpenberg

More and more financial institutions are attempting to tackle the issue of fraud, which is taking on new forms and ever larger proportions at a rapid pace. Phishing has been replaced by aggressive ‘vishing’ (voice phishing), which has hoaxed corporates such as Michelin into transferring millions to ill-intentioned parties. The modus operandi has shifted from cyber thugs attempting site takeover to online fraudsters using unsuspecting mule accounts or organized collusions with people who hand over their accounts to be used as transfer accounts while levying a fee for the service.
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by Philipp Härle, Andras Havas and Hamid Samadari

Banks have made dramatic changes to risk management in the past decade—and the pace of change shows no signs of slowing. Here are five initiatives to help them stay ahead. Risk management in banking has been transformed over the past decade, largely in response to regulations that emerged from the global financial crisis. But we believe it could be set to undergo even more sweeping change in the next decade. Indeed, while risk-operational processes such as credit administration today account for some 50 percent of the function’s staff, and analytics just 15 percent, by 2025 those figures could be around 25 percent and 40 percent respectively. Continue reading…

International telecom provider VimpelCom and its subsidiary Silkway Holdings BV (hereinafter referred to as VimpelCom) have accepted a settlement offered by the Dutch Public Prosecution Service (DPPS) totaling 397,500,000 US dollars. VimpelCom is headquarted in Amsterdam. The DPPS accuses VimpelCom of the criminal offences bribery of government officials and inaccurate books and records. It concerns the period around the time of gaining access to the Uzbek telecom market and thereafter (from 2006 up to and including 2012).

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