Judicial and law enforcement authorities in Cyprus, Portugal and Latvia have dismantled a criminal network suspected of organising 133 sham marriages in Cyprus to facilitate illegal immigration into the European Union. During a joint action day carried out on 29 January, 15 suspects were arrested: 13 in Cyprus, one in Latvia and one in Portugal. According to the investigations, the criminal network was also involved in human trafficking and money laundering activities, as well as forcing victims into bogus marriages for immigration purposes. Continue reading…

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), the Bank for International Settlements’ Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) and the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) has recently jointly published a consultative report Transparency and responsiveness of initial margin in centrally cleared markets – review and policy proposals. Interested parties are invited to comment on this report. The ten policy proposals in the report aim to increase the resilience of the centrally cleared ecosystem by improving participants’ understanding of CCPs’ initial margin calculations and potential future margin requirements. Continue reading…

by Robert Houghton

The battle about operating at home, in the office or other locations continues to rage in financial services. Yet in many ways, the debate is irrelevant. The genie is out of the bottle. Ignoring it – even if very few people work from home in an organisation – simply increases risk. This stems from regulators’ calls for a level playing field across home and office when it comes to compliance. In the UK, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) says remote workers must not affect a firm’s ability to continually meet regulations1. Continue reading…

by Alessandro Cerboni

Organisations are complex dynamic systems and for these it is necessary to strengthen Compliance Resilience. When we talk about interactions between agents (people) of a complex system such as an organisation, we most commonly refer to concepts of complex systems theory or simulation systems, which are disciplines created to study and move in complex dynamic systems. Complex systems theory studies the structure and behaviour of systems composed of many interacting parts. Continue reading…

Armis, the asset intelligence cybersecurity company, recently announced, The Anatomy of Cybersecurity: A Dissection of 2023’s Attack Landscape. The 2023 analysis of Armis’ proprietary data offers critical insight into the multifaceted challenges global organisations face when it comes to protecting the entire attack surface. Report findings serve as a blueprint to help security teams worldwide prioritise efforts to reduce cyber risk exposure in 2024. Continue reading…

by Tom Read

In the first part of the article that was published recently (see the related items section), Tom took a close look at 23 stats on big tech’s carbon footprint. He did so by first providing an overview of Tech’s Co2 emissions. He then talked about some stats about the best and worst among the Tech industry and consumer electronics. In this second part, he will take closer look at consumer media, search engines and artificial intelligence, emissions in FinTech and e-commerce, and the road to lower emissions.  Continue reading…

The European Banking Authority (EBA) has published amendments to the reporting requirements for market risk. As the implementation of the Fundamental Review of the Trading Book (FRTB) in the EU approaches, the EBA revised the information to be reported on the own funds requirements under the alternative approaches, and adds reporting on reclassifications of instrument between the regulatory books. Continue reading…

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has launched criminal proceedings against Guy Flintham for committing fraud by false representation and for carrying out regulated activity without authorisation. The FCA alleges that between January 2016 and November 2021, Mr Flintham, based in Blackburn, Lancashire, defrauded around 240 investors by making false representations to persuade them to invest approximately £19m in an investment scheme operated by him. Mr Flintham made a number of fraudulent claims to investors, including about how the scheme was operated and the profits they could and were making via the scheme. He falsified documents in order to support some of his claims.
Continue reading…