The European Commission has today recommended the European Council (Article 50) to endorse the agreement reached at negotiator level on the Withdrawal Agreement, including a revised Protocol on Ireland / Northern Ireland, and approve a revised Political Declaration on the framework of the future EU-UK relationship. The Commission also recommends that the European Parliament give its consent to this agreement. This follows a series of intensive negotiations between the European Commission and UK negotiators over the past few days. Continue reading…

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has issued the Seventeenth progress report on adoption of the Basel regulatory framework. As noted by the Group of Central Bank Governors and Heads of Supervision, the Committee’s oversight body, member jurisdictions are expected to ensure a full, timely and consistent implementation of the finalised Basel III reforms.

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by Bob Goulooze

In order to create economies of scale, national airline companies are looking for partners, preferably equal ones, but certainly ones that may complement the current services of the flag carrier. In 2004, Air France (AF) merged with KLM and troubles have arisen since then. AF is the biggest partner in the joint venture with KLM and claimed the lead from day one. Those who are familiar with the way the French work couldn’t believe in the first place that this would be a match made in heaven. The French have the patronage system, which is a social unequal relationship between a powerful and less powerful partner. The powerful ‘patron’ renders favors to the subservient one in return for services, adherence, and homage. You don’t have to be culturally savvy to understand that such a patronage relationship is so un-Dutch, at least being at the receiving end. The Dutch have a more equal culture in which reaching consensus is the bottom line.
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The FCA has published the interim report of its market study into the pricing of home and motor insurance. The FCA found that competition is not working well for all consumers in these markets. It sets out concerns about how pricing in these markets leads to consumers who do not switch or negotiate with their provider paying high prices for their insurance.

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IT Governance, the leading provider of cyber security and privacy management solutions, has released a new green paper: ISO 27701 – Privacy information management systems. ISO/IEC 27701:2019 is a new privacy-focused standard that provides organisations with a comprehensive set of guidelines for managing security of information and personal data. The Standard builds upon the internationally recognised standard for information security management, ISO 27001, and specifies the requirements for developing a privacy information management system (PIMS) as an extension to an established ISO 27001 information security management system (ISMS).

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by Elina Karpacheva

The future is in digitalisation of financial services. Traditional financial institutions are changing under the disruptive technology that stems from the FinTech sector. Banks, lending, payment, e-money companies, and investment firms have embraced new business models and opportunities for growth by partnering with providers of technology-enabled services. Outsourcing of business activities as a strategy proved value maximising for the financial industry. Continue reading…

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it took a significant step toward establishing the regulatory regime for security-based swap dealers by adopting a package of rules and rule amendments under Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act). These actions establish recordkeeping and reporting requirements for security-based swap dealers and major security-based swap participants and amend the recordkeeping and reporting requirements for broker-dealers. Under these rules, these companies will be required to create and retain fundamental business records to document and track their operations, facilitating the Commission’s ability to monitor compliance and reducing risk to the market.

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by Elina Karpacheva

The Bulgarian FinTech community met to discuss compliance and financial crime for the first time in Sofia. The Spotlight event, organized by Eleven Ventures and the European Compliance Center was truly a success – an evening full of valuable insights and discussions between entrepreneurs and AML/financial crime specialists. The event showed that the thriving innovative ecosystem seriously takes into account the AML/financial crime risks and is committed to building effective internal systems for detection, prevention and response. The event coincided with the launch of the First Bulgarian FinTech report. Bulgaria is the fastest growing Fintech destination in the CEE region according to the newest CEE Fintech Atlas by the Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI).
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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published multi-firm review findings indicating the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive’s (MiFID II) research unbundling rules have improved asset managers’ accountability over costs, saving millions for investors. A key principle of the MiFID II unbundling reforms is to ensure that portfolio managers act as good agents in the best interests of their clients and that their investment decisions are not unduly influenced by third parties.

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Christopher Woodhead’s decade and a half on the run has ended, following an enforcement hearing at Leeds Magistrates’ Court. In 2004, Woodhead was sentenced to 6 years and 4 months in prison, following a joint prosecution by the Serious Fraud Office and West Yorkshire Police. Today he was handed down an additional 3 years default sentence in relation to the unpaid confiscation order of £428,000. With interest, the amount now owing is £900,000.

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