Delving beyond the world of algo’s/AI, the drive for ever faster speeds and platform consolidation is potentially the return of the utility platform were a shared platform offers efficiencies to a group of participants. For example, the concept of a Regulatory Reporting utility for an association of banks could well lead to better transparency in reporting, higher quality/more accurate data, and lower costs. The benefit of a shared platform would bring efficiencies to the changing reporting requirements and probably lead to a faster deployment.
Following two high profile fines for regulatory reporting failures, totalling nearly £62 million by the UK’s FCA, the fines prompted an interesting observation by the Director of Enforcement and Market Oversight at the FCA.
Here we are … always following new market developments to inform our product development teams … and one item caught my eye in the last week:– Digital Regulatory Reporting (DRR) starring the FCA and a host of collaborative partners! As Ronald Reagan noted having seen the film Back to the Future “Never has there been a more exciting time to be alive, a time of rousing wonder and heroic achievement.”
This week I have been dusting off the Q&A release from ESMA in September 2018 regarding the reporting of FX Swaps to ensure we have successfully planned for the impending changes. The aforementioned Q&A included reference data and transaction reporting scenarios where an FX Swap is reported as a single stand-alone financial instrument. This Q&A implementation period was six months and to ensure a consistent approach across reporting requirements, ESMA also published a Q&A on FX Swaps reporting under EMIR, which should be implemented 12 months after its publication, as it is more difficult to implement, but the two are harmonised to ensure consistency.
Last week we looked at the recent GFXC note on Disclosures and today we take a deep dive into the accompanying report. As will be seen, it continues the theme of the importance of disclosures.
Not if - it’s the clarity of content that counts for FX Disclosures!
The Global FX Committee released the minutes of their last meeting, papers on Cover & Deal, Disclosures and a survey on Valentine’s Day. It makes for interesting reading for the FX market and luckily, on the 90th anniversary of the Valentine’s Day Massacre no bullets were fired!
LIBOR, which stands for ‘London Interbank Offered Rate’ is a benchmark interest rate that is currently used across a wide range of financial contracts both on and off balance sheet. Currently contracts in excess $370 trillion are reliant on LIBOR benchmark rates. As things currently stand, the LIBOR rate that appears on pages of a Reuters (or other) screen could go blank on 1st January 2022.
LIBOR is going nowhere fast. With $370 trillion of outstanding notional swaps tied to it, the desire to wean markets off this popular fix is going to be a long hard slog. The reasons for removing LIBOR are well rehearsed and the underlying intellectual rigour behind the arguments were compelling before the deluge of rate rigging allegations appeared.
The UK’s Cryptoassets Taskforce is comprised of HM Treasury, the FCA and the Bank of England. Not to be likened to the three witches from Macbeth who are often thought about at this time of year!! Just in time for Halloween, they have published a Final Report that sets the scene for the Cryptoassets, Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) sector in the UK from a policy and regulatory perspective.
The European Union (EU) Securities Financing Transaction Regulation (SFTR) is part of Europe’s continuing clampdown on potential risks in the banking & financial services sectors. Scheduled for introduction in Q3 2019, it requires firms to report details of their Securities Financing Transactions (SFT’s) to trade repositories. This includes a range of instruments including; Repos, Securities and Commodities Lending, Buy/Sell Backs, Margin Lending and Total Return Swaps.
With FX volatility now rising rapidly our three fintech entrepreneurs were planning how to disrupt the Foreign Exchange market (the only financial market that runs for 24 hours per day) with a revolutionary ‘follow-the-sun’ app. They were planning to set up a global, low-cost, transparent, real-time, digital, blockchain exchange staffed by robots.
One thing that often comes up, whether we are talking informally to market contacts, or engaged with clients and prospects, is the level of uncertainty around technology strategy.
