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Guest Comment

A Prospectus Investors Can Understand

May 12, 2008 - The SEC’s summary-prospectus proposal “offers a significant opportunity to reduce costs and investor confusion with a better, simpler model of investor disclosure,” writes NewRiver’s Len Driscoll.

'Chicken and Egg' of IT Transparency

May 5, 2008 - Business leaders pushing their firms to unite disparate IT teams to benefit from shared solutions face many obstacles, says Tideway Systems’ Charles Rattray: “Return on investment is difficult to justify prior to the expenditure and the net benefit even harder to articulate.”

IT Initiatives for a Challenging Market

April 28, 2008 - Many financial firms are taking a cautious approach to IT spending. Financial Insights’ Sean O’Dowd highlights ten initiatives he says can improve competitiveness and position them for future success.

Breaking Down Trading Barriers

April 21, 2008 - Regulators have been promoting competition in the world’s equities markets, says Liquidnet’s Howard Meyerson, but there are still rules in place that impede efficient trading.

Soft Dollars, Hard Choices

April 14, 2008 - Guidelines from the SEC and FSA on the services that can be expensed using soft dollars could “radically alter” how firms “select and pay for trading systems technology,” writes Portware’s Harrell Smith.

MSBs: Friend or Foe?

April 7, 2008 - Worried about money laundering risks, many banks have severed their ties to money services businesses. But MSBs need banking relationships, say KPMG’s Antonio Pereira and Sven Stumbauer, and there are several ways they can demonstrate that they have strong AML policies.

Taking the Risk Out of Mutual Fund Compliance

March 24, 2008 - Though financial firms have struggled to obtain the accurate reference data needed to market mutual funds, NewRiver’s Jeff Levering writes that “avoiding the risks and costs of unreliable data is not as difficult as it seems.”

Information and Incentives: The Heart of Risk Management

March 17, 2008 - In an environment where markets are complex and unpredictable, information and incentives “lie at the very heart of good risk management,” says the Federal Reserve’s Randall Kroszner.

CEP Moving Into the Mainstream

March 3, 2008 - Last year a number of financial firms “kicked the tires” and deployed their first complex event processing applications, writes Coral8’s John Morrell. Now, “2008 is poised to become the year of mainstream CEP adoption.”

The Future of E-compliance

February 25, 2008 - Finra’s guidance on e-communications offers “principles that member firms should consider when establishing supervisory policies and procedures,” explains LiveOffice’s Matt Smith, who says that meeting the guidelines “should not cause companies any significant hardship.”

A Lesson in Poor Password Practices

February 11, 2008 - The recent internal fraud at Société Générale “should serve as a wake-up call to any organization that has not addressed the issue of privileged password management,” writes Cyber-Ark Software’s Calum Macleod.

SEC Compliance Exams: A 2008 Snapshot

January 28, 2008 - Lori Richards, director of the SEC’s office of compliance inspections and examinations, offers an overview of the agency’s plans for exams in 2008.

Portfolio Margining: A Work in Progress

January 22, 2008 - Newedge USA’s Doug Engmann says that, though the portfolio margining rules have been a success, if the industry wants to see the full benefits, all options customers must be eligible, if only for certain strategies.

Time to Rethink Sepa?

January 14, 2008 - The Single Euro Payments Area will soon go live, but because “regulatory mandates were drafted before their impact on operational issues was fully understood,” observers looking at implementation issues may think it is years away, writes Biss Research’s Gary Wright.

Getting the Most of a Vista Migration

January 7, 2008 - Microsoft’s Vista OS represents a “critical inflection point for information technology professionals in the financial services field,” say Intel’s Anne Gregory and Kevin Unbedacht of Symantec, who make a case for updating management software and adopting advanced PCs in the inevitable migration.

The Future Is Carbon Futures

December 10, 2007 - With industry observers suggesting that carbon could become one of the fastest-growing markets ever, Triple Point Technology’s Michael Schwartz says that cap-and-trade schemes are here to stay.

Kentucky Windage Rules the Day in the Collateralized Debt Markets

November 19, 2007 - The systems many firms use to value collateralized debt obligations are not unlike "sticking one's finger in the air and measuring wind speed and direction and making an 'eyeball' evaluation, writes Kestrel's Ed Bishop.

From Outsourcing to Smart-Sourcing

November 12, 2007 - Financial firms are increasingly employing hybrid approaches to outsourcing in which ownership of some components is retained through offshore subsidiaries while low-value processes are handled by third parties, writes Milestone Advisors’ Jess Varughese.

Japan and the Future of Electronic Trading

November 5, 2007 - After a decade-long recession, Japan has bounced back, says Aite Group’s Sang Lee, and despite some technical issues, its securities market is “highly liquid and ripe for continued expansion.”

The Value of BSA Filings

October 29, 2007 - Bank Secrecy Act filings cause difficulties for firms and law enforcement agencies alike, but the benefits in combating money-laundering and terrorist financing are manifold, says FinCEN's James Freis.

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