The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published a Thematic Report on fees charged by Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs) and Trade Repositories (TRs), following the conclusion of ESMA’s supervisory review of the current fee structures in the credit rating and trade repository industries. In conducting its review, ESMA has collected and analysed information from publically available resources, periodical submissions to ESMA and dedicated requests for information from supervised entities. ESMA also maintained regular engagement with users of credit rating and trade repositories services who provided further information.
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The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) decided to delay the publication of the data on the double volume cap (DVC) mechanism for January 2018. The current quality and completeness of the data does not allow for a sufficiently meaningful and comprehensive publication of double volume cap calculations, as required under MiFID II/MiFIR, and ESMA has taken this decision to avoid creating an unlevel playing field.
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Artificial intelligence (AI) can unlock and analyse data in ways that people alone simply cannot. Hélène Stanway and Ashish Umre of XL Catlin, discuss how AI can help risk managers to do their jobs and insurers to design risk transfer solutions to meet their needs.
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The Federal Reserve Board requested comment on proposed guidance that would clarify the Board’s supervisory expectations related to risk management for large financial institutions. The guidance is part of a broader initiative to develop a new rating system for large financial institutions that will align with the post-crisis supervisory program.
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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCTA) has imposed a financial penalty of £250,000 on former Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) interest rate derivatives trader, Neil Danziger, and prohibited him from performing any function in relation to any regulated financial activity. Mr Danziger formerly worked at RBS trading products referenced to Japanese Yen (JPY) LIBOR. In addition, on occasion, he made RBS’s JPY LIBOR submissions to the British Bankers Association (BBA) when RBS’s primary submitters were not available.
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HM Treasury has announced the appointment of Charles Randell CBE as the new Chair of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Charles is currently an external member of the Prudential Regulation Committee of the Bank of England and a non-executive board member of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Charles will take up the role on 1 April 2018. The appointment is for a five year term.
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The Committee’s Basel III reforms complement the initial phase of the Basel III reforms announced in 2010. The 2017 reforms seek to restore credibility in the calculation of riskweighted assets (RWAs) and improve the comparability of banks’ capital ratios. RWAs are an estimate of risk that determines the minimum level of regulatory capital a bank must maintain to deal with unexpected losses. A prudent and credible calculation of RWAs is an integral element of the risk-based capital framework.
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More than $500 million has been recouped by tax authorities worldwide after the Panama Papers revelations, first published in April 2016.Spain alone collected $122 million after an investigation into the affairs of tax residents who had stockpiled money offshore. Among the countries represented in the Panama Papers data, a total of 15 – on three continents – have publicly commented on the amount of taxes recovered by tax authorities.
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The European Central Bank (ECB) has decided to develop a daily euro unsecured overnight interest rate based on data already available to the Eurosystem. The rate, which will be finalised before 2020, will complement existing benchmark rates produced by the private sector and will serve as a backstop reference rate. It will be based entirely on transactions in euro that are reported by banks in accordance with the ECB’s money market statistical reporting (MMSR).
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Rabobank, National Association (“RNA”), a California-based subsidiary of Coöperatieve Rabobank, U.A. (“Rabobank”), has taken a Q4 2017 provision of approximately EUR 310 million in anticipation of a settlement connected to previously disclosed investigations. RNA has been under investigation since 2013 by the U.S. Department of Justice and other U.S. authorities for possible violations of the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act and other regulations and statutes in relation to its historical AML compliance program, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (“OCC”) examination of that program in the past.  Continue reading…