The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) launched yesterday a consultation on draft guidelines on complex debt instruments and structured deposits. These guidelines are intended to enhance investor protection by offering further clarification on which types of financial instruments and structured deposits can be provided, that all the relevant legal conditions are fulfilled, without the firm assessing a client’s knowledge and experience (i.e. to carry out an appropriateness test).

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A lot happened when Dragi spoke to the European Parliament in November last year. With Lithuania, the euro welcomed its 19th member.  The ECB started the asset purchase programme on March 9. The ECB also moved to a new building which has been officially inaugurated last week. The ECB unveiled a new 20 euro banknote; and in a milestone towards even greater transparency of  decision-making procedures, the ECB published on 19 February for the first time the accounts of a monetary policy meeting of the Governing Council of the ECB. The following speech of Mr. Draghi was held on March 23 in Brussels. Continue reading…

The FINRA Investor Education Foundation recently issued a new research report, Non-Traditional Costs of Financial Fraud, which found that nearly two thirds of self-reported financial fraud victims experienced at least one non-financial cost of fraud to a serious degree—including severe stress, anxiety, difficulty sleeping and depression.
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The European Central Bank (ECB) yesterday inaugurated its new premises on the site of the Grossmarkthalle – Frankfurt’s former wholesale market hall – alongside regular meetings of the Governing Council and General Council. “This building is a symbol of the best of what Europe can achieve together,” said ECB President Mario Draghi.  Some activists in the streets of Frankfurt clearly did not agree with Draghi. Continue reading…

The Kaspersky Lab study ‘Financial Cyberthreats in 2014’ reports that the number of financial malware attacks against Android users grew by 3.25 times in 2014. Following an initial decrease in March 2014, Kaspersky Lab researchers registered a significant increase in the number of attacks by Trojan-SMS malware during the second half of the year. Continue reading…

The Council of the European Union approved an agreement with the European Parliament on strengthened rules to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.The directive and regulation will strengthen EU rules against money laundering and ensure consistency with the approach followed at international level. The draft regulation deals more specifically with information accompanying transfers of funds.

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Airmic has issued guidance for members on preparing for the 2015 Insurance Act, which became law last month and will fundamentally change the rules governing commercial insurance when it comes into force next year. The document includes key next steps and urges members to start preparations immediately. Meanwhile, Airmic members have reported a mixed response from the insurance market to the reforms, with some risk managers expressing frustration at the speed of implementation.

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Mathilde Fox & Stephan Van Lerberghe

While the Basel 2 agreements envisaged a more risk sensitive approach to define capital requirements, the recent financial crises highlighted the need for more capital of better quality. Indeed, financial regulators are now focusing on the capacity of equity and other subordinated liabilities to bear losses in case of bank failures. From this environment emerged an exotic named bond: the so-called “CoCo” bond. Although it sounds tropical, the first one was issued in Europe by Lloyds in 2009. Since then several banks have been joining the CoCos’ issuers rank. In Belgium, KBC was the pioneer by issuing a 1Bn USD CoCo in January 2013. Continue reading…

Settlements have been reached with eight airlines in a class action lawsuit involving the price of airline tickets. The Settling Defendants are: Air France; Cathay Pacific; Japan Airlines; Malaysian Airlines; Qantas; Singapore Airlines; Thai Airways; and Vietnam Airlines. The lawsuit continues against five Non-Settling Defendant airlines: Air New Zealand; All Nippon Airways (“ANA”); China Airlines (Taiwan); EVA Airways; and Philippines Airlines.
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