The Council of the European Union approved an agreement with the European Parliament on strengthened rules to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.The directive and regulation will strengthen EU rules against money laundering and ensure consistency with the approach followed at international level. The draft regulation deals more specifically with information accompanying transfers of funds.
Trawling through the various articles that focus on non-financial businesses and compliance I felt these comments by Sergio Ferragut was very interesting. Sergio Ferragut is a senior consultant on public policy and business transformation and lectures on drug policy, money laundering and business transformation. He was in charge of key projects on transformation and anti-money laundering at the Mexican Attorney General Office (PGR) and the Mexican Treasury Department (SHCP) after a long career in senior management positions within the private sector in retailing, information technology and banking. Continue reading…
Airmic has issued guidance for members on preparing for the 2015 Insurance Act, which became law last month and will fundamentally change the rules governing commercial insurance when it comes into force next year. The document includes key next steps and urges members to start preparations immediately. Meanwhile, Airmic members have reported a mixed response from the insurance market to the reforms, with some risk managers expressing frustration at the speed of implementation.
Mathilde Fox & Stephan Van Lerberghe
While the Basel 2 agreements envisaged a more risk sensitive approach to define capital requirements, the recent financial crises highlighted the need for more capital of better quality. Indeed, financial regulators are now focusing on the capacity of equity and other subordinated liabilities to bear losses in case of bank failures. From this environment emerged an exotic named bond: the so-called “CoCo” bond. Although it sounds tropical, the first one was issued in Europe by Lloyds in 2009. Since then several banks have been joining the CoCos’ issuers rank. In Belgium, KBC was the pioneer by issuing a 1Bn USD CoCo in January 2013. Continue reading…
Settlements have been reached with eight airlines in a class action lawsuit involving the price of airline tickets. The Settling Defendants are: Air France; Cathay Pacific; Japan Airlines; Malaysian Airlines; Qantas; Singapore Airlines; Thai Airways; and Vietnam Airlines. The lawsuit continues against five Non-Settling Defendant airlines: Air New Zealand; All Nippon Airways (“ANA”); China Airlines (Taiwan); EVA Airways; and Philippines Airlines.
Continue reading…
Duisenberg school of finance (DSF) will integrate its education programme with the honours programme of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and VU University Amsterdam (VU) by 1 September 2015.
The real challenge in 2015 will be to avoid the economic shipwreck of the Eurozone in what is often presented as a Japanese-style deflationary scenario. Unfortunately, that scenario seems more and more plausible – prices have been going down over the past two years and the inflation rate will become negative at the beginning of 2015. Technically, of course, this could be described as disinflation rather than deflation, or as a trend towards low inflation, in order to avoid stigmatising a general fall in prices. Continue reading…
ECB Banking Supervision recently issued a recommendation to banks on their dividend distribution policies for the financial year 2014 as part of its aim to strengthen the safety and soundness of the euro area banking system. The ECB has also notified banks that variable remuneration will be thoroughly reviewed in the coming months.
SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc. (“SS&C”) (Nasdaq: SSNC), a leading global provider of financial services software and software-enabled services, and Advent Software, Inc. (“Advent”) (Nasdaq: ADVS), a leading provider of software and services for the global investment management industry, recently announced that the Companies have entered into a definitive agreement wherein SS&C will acquire Advent. Under the terms of the agreement, SS&C will purchase Advent for an enterprise value of approximately $2.7 billion in cash, equating to $44.25 per share plus assumption of debt.
Sharing key payment trends and best practices from a global perspective but with dedicated focus on the EMEA region. The EPCA Payment Summit is a 2 day conference for top delegates from banking and financial, payments industry. Running in its 14th edition now, it is a leading discussion platform for professionals in this space. For more than ten years, over 1500 leading professionals have been gathering together at the EPCA Payments conference. This proves the importance of exchanging innovation and overall payment experience in the wholesale and consumer marketplace. The purpose is to be a top level environment for the exchange of business insight and networking. The conference is completely organized by and for professionals, ensuring the highest level of quality in all aspects.
More information: www.epcapaymentsummit.com
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Lieve LowetEU Affairs consultant and lobbyist
Elina Karpacheva Chair of the European Compliance Centre based in Sofia, Bulgaria
Ahsan HabibManager, AML Investigation - Correspondent Banking, Royal Bank of Canada
Michael AmadoLawyer in Paris / Lawyer in Canada
Alex MovchanAlex Movchan CIA CICA CFE is the President of the Institute for Internal Controls - Central and Eastern Europe
Elena PykhovaElena Pykhova is a thought leader, influencer and founder of a think tank, Best Practice Operational Risk Forum. 
Daniel VaknineCEO and Partner of Visslan
Nancy MehradAuthor and the CEO and Founder of Registrant Law Professional Corporation
Ajay KataraConsulting Partner and Head the RegTech Portfolio in Banking Risk Management area at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)