by Michel Klompmaker

In many parts of the world, the coronavirus has been ruthless. This is also the case in the southern states of the USA. Viewed from a Western European perspective, the pandemic appears to be somewhat extinguished, but this is by no means the case from the perspective of the coronavirus itself. Very worrying is the recent increase in the worldwide number of registered infections from about 10 million on June 27 to more than 13 million on July 12. In part two of our series “Lockdown or Knockout?” we take a moment to reflect on what has recently happened in Texas and in passing we take the opinion of a German virologist from the University of Bonn. Continue reading…

Recent research conducted by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has revealed that approximately 2.6 million consumers in the UK have purchased cryptoassets at some point in time. This essentially marks an increase of 1.1 million since the FCA carried out a survey face to face on the same topic in 2019. Among the 1.9 million UK consumers that still have cryptoassets in their possession, such as Ripple, Ether, or Bitcoins, about half of them hold more than £260. This research conducted by the FCA is a part of its work with the Government and Bank of England in attempting to comprehend market size, profiles of consumers and what their attitudes are towards cryptoassets. Continue reading…

The European Commission last Friday referred Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands to the Court of Justice of the European Union, with a request for financial sanctions, for failing to fully implement the 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD4) into their national law. Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said: “We have robust EU rules in place but they must be applied consistently and efficiently. We will make sure that everyone in both private and public sectors applies the rules rigorously. We have launched many infringement procedures to ensure the full transposition and application of our rules.”  Continue reading…

by Alex Movchan

We recently conducted another interview with Olga Lukashenko who is an Audit Director at Reanda Netherlands. The first interview that was conducted with this special woman can be found on our platform under related items, which was about planning and executing audit engagements during the Covid-19 crisis. This particular talk with Olga covers the topic of conducting audit engagements in regions with a high level of exposure to fraud and corruption.  Continue reading…

by Michel Klompmaker

We have decided to publish a series of articles entitled “Lockdown or Knock-out?” on this platform. We will discuss and comment on the current measures taken by the various governments, economic forecasts from experts and expectations of politicians from the perspective of risk & compliance. We are just going to start and as long as there is no vaccine for the coronavirus, we will regularly discuss the issues that are worthwhile. Today we start with the recent news about lending to business customers in the Netherlands. On the one hand, we see a decrease in the number of infections and deaths, but what does this actually mean for the economy if we put it in a somewhat broader perspective? Is there reason for optimism? We would like to spread the optimistic sound, but we cannot ignore the facts and that they are not good. Did circumstances leave no other choice or have the banks and the responsible minister switched to a form of Russian roulette? ING announced yesterday that it expects to triple the number of bankruptcies in the Netherlands next year. And in the meantime, since the outbreak of the corona crisis, the Dutch banking sector has provided additional credit of around EUR 14 billion. As a result, the percentage of gross national product corporate debt (IMF source) has risen again to over 150 percent. For the critical down-to-earth reviews, who like to make dismissive statements about the financial policy of the so called “garlic countries”: Italian corporate debts are in percentage at over 60 percent of the gross national product. Continue reading…

The Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) and the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) have recently published a report entitled Central counterparty default management auctions – Issues for consideration.  The report outlines certain issues that central counterparties (CCPs) should consider regarding default management auctions processes. It also identifies practices that CCPs could consider in the development and improvement of default management auctions to address those issues. Continue reading…

Founded in 1990, Objectway is a fast-growing international player providing financial software and digital solutions for banking, securities and insurance. Objectway is a Top 100 global FinTech provider and a leader in the Wealth, Investment & Asset Management Software Industry. This year, they have been launching a series of webinars on the topic “Practical Strategies for Digital Client Engagement”.  Continue reading…

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) has recently published for public consultation an evaluation of too-big-to-fail (TBTF) reforms for systemically important banks. The TBTF reforms were endorsed by the G20 in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis and have been implemented in FSB jurisdictions over the past decade. The evaluation examines the extent to which the reforms are reducing the systemic and moral hazard risks associated with systemically important banks, as well as their broader effects on the financial system. Continue reading…