Criminals will find it more difficult to launder money through the UK thanks to a new government crackdown. The Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Simon Kirby, (see photo) has unveiled plans to create a new watchdog that will tackle potential weaknesses in the supervisory system that criminals and terrorists may be trying to exploit. The new Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision (OPBAS) will help improve the overall standards of supervision and ensure supervisors and law enforcement work together more effectively.
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Ken van Ierlant

Information technology is just a utility—like water or electricity. We’d all like that statement to be true. When we want to connect to the Internet, we want it to be there—instantly. And most of the time, it is. For the most common applications—e-mail or Web browsing—the Internet can be turned on or off. We can get e-mail on our computers. We can get e-mail on our mobile phones. We can get e-mail from kiosks in airports. We can use the campus e-mail system or gmail. But thinking about IT as a utility is misleading. Thirty years ago, e-mail was an exotic application available only to scientists with access to ARPANET. IT has come a long way since then—just like utilities.
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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has today published its Mission, which gives firms and consumers greater clarity about how the FCA prioritises its interventions in financial markets.  Alongside the Mission, the FCA has published its Business Plan for 2017/18 and Fees consultation. For the first time, the FCA has also published its Sector Views, which highlight the issues and developments the FCA sees in the sectors it regulates. Together, these documents provide greater clarity about how the FCA operates and more transparency about the way it makes decisions. Continue reading…

In a new forecast Nordea expects the global economy to grow by 3.5 per cent this year and 3.7 per cent in 2018 after 3.1 per cent in 2016. This is slightly higher than the winter forecast from December. The more benign forecast stems from an upgrade of the outlook for the advanced economies amid the increasing political uncertainties surrounding the business environment including the upcoming French elections, the Brexit negotiations and doubts about Donald Trump’s economic policy, says Nordea’s Group Chief Economist, Helge J. Pedersen.
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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has today published near final rules on the implementation of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) II. These include changes to the trading of financial instruments including issues affecting trading venues, transparency of trading and algorithmic and high frequency trading. The FCA is also providing an update on the taping of telephone conversations by retail financial advisers.
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Management and technology consultancy BearingPoint, a leading provider of Risk and Regulatory Technology (RiskTech/RegTech), has been recognized as “Central Banking Consultancy and Advisory Services Provider of the Year 2017” for its expertise in supporting central banks with the collection, analysis, and dissemination of their supervisory data. Continue reading…

With the acquisition of the business activities of Pritle, BinckBank expands its digital wealth management offering and provides an impulse toward the realization of its European growth ambitions in investment services. Pritle operates in The Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Switzerland. This footprint is complimentary to the geographic reach of BinckBank. Pritle offers a unique combination of scalable, state of the art technology combined with a highly driven start-up culture. Together with the client base of BinckBank, this formula will accelerate growth within the market of highly accessible automated portfolio management.

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The Financial Stability Board (FSB) today published a letter from Mark Carney, Chair of the FSB, sent to G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors ahead of their meeting in Baden-Baden from 17-18 March. In his letter, the FSB Chair highlights the good progress made in implementing the post-crisis reforms, as a result of which the global financial system is moving from a state of fragility to greater resilience.
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The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision recently issued a consultative document on the Identification and management of step-in risk. The proposed framework will help to mitigate potential problems at shadow banks from spilling over to banks. This work is part of the G20’s initiative to strengthen the oversight and regulation of the shadow banking system with the aim of mitigating systemic risks, in particular, those arising from banks’ involvement with shadow banking entities.
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The Financial Stability Board (FSB) today published a consultation document on Proposed governance arrangements for the unique transaction identifier (UTI). The consultation sets out proposals for the governance arrangements for a global UTI, as a key harmonised identifier designed to facilitate effective aggregation of transaction reports about over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives markets.
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