The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has today fined Cenkos Securities plc (Cenkos) £530,500 for failures in its sponsor services business. Cenkos failed to have appropriate systems and controls in place across its sponsor services business, and, on a particular transaction, failed to act in its sponsor role with the level of diligence and professional care that the FCA expects.
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The Financial Stability Board (FSB) has launched a peer review on the implementation of the G20/Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) Principles of Corporate Governance (Principles). The overarching objective of the review is to take stock of how FSB member jurisdictions have applied the Principles to publicly listed, regulated financial institutions, identifying effective practices and areas where good progress has been made while noting gaps and areas of weakness.  Continue reading…

by Hans Bevers

The Bremain scenario was our (very uncomfortable) base case scenario going into the referendum but now seems (because it’s not 100% sure that an exit will happen) to be off the table. The effects of a Brexit both from an economic and asset allocation point of view are just impossible to ignore. That said, while the outcome is highly unwelcome, this is not the end of the world. The global economic recovery is still weak and of course Brexit will make things harder but doom scenarios in terms of huge economic fallout seem exaggerated for now. Moreover, European politics were already quite worrying even before this latest referendum.
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As anticipated the mostly positive results of the 2016 EBA stress tests show visibly strengthened EU banks’ capital position; however main emerging structural weakness remains untested. Referring to the EBA stress test results announced last Friday, Scope Ratings noted that as anticipated on aggregate they highlighted a much improved capital position for the large EU bank sector.
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The Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) of the ADGM and Paris EUROPLACE, the organisation in charge of developing the Paris financial marketplace, have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding to enable closer collaboration on possible joint financial activities and common interests.

We talk a lot about risk appetite, but what does it mean in practice? That was the question posed by Airmic deputy CEO Julia Graham at the Cambridge risk summit. The event also heard from a leading academic that knowledge is an often-neglected area of risk management.

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ESMA and a number of national supervisors have observed an increase in the offer of speculative products, including financial contracts for difference (CFDs), binary options and other speculative products (such as rolling spot forex) to retail clients, and at the same time a surge in the numbers of complaints from investors who have suffered significant losses when trading these products. 

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The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) today appointed Fernando Restoy as Chair of the Financial Stability Institute (FSI). His appointment takes effect on 1 January 2017 and is for a five-year term. Mr Restoy’s appointment fills the vacancy being created by the retirement of Josef Tošovský, who has chaired the FSI since 2000.
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The European Banking Authority (EBA) published last Friday evening the results of the 2016 EU-wide stress test of 51 banks from 15 EU and EEA countries covering around 70% of banking assets in each jurisdiction and across the EU. The objective of the stress test is to provide supervisors, banks and other market participants with a common analytical framework to consistently compare and assess the resilience of large EU banks to adverse economic developments. Along with the results, the EBA is providing again substantial transparency of EU banks’ balance sheets, with over 16,000 data points per bank, an essential step towards enhancing market discipline in the EU.
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The objective of the stress test is to provide supervisors, banks and other market participants with a common analytical framework to consistently compare and assess the resilience of large EU banks to adverse economic developments. But stille teher are questions about methodology, etc… The ten frequently asked questions on the 2016 EU-wide stress test are mentioned below.
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