The Panamanian government has contracted communications and consulting firm Bellwether Strategies to “promote Panama’s commercial and diplomatic objectives” and to provide centralized “crisis communication” strategies for the government’s response to the Panama Papers. Panama’s president Juan Carlos Varela and ambassador to the U.S. Emanuel Gonzalez-Revilla will as the officials overseeing Bellwether’s work.
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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has today published the final findings of its investment and corporate banking market study and set out a targeted package of remedies to ensure effective competition in the market. The final report confirms the findings of the interim report published in April 2016. It finds that whilst many clients feel well served by primary capital market services there were some areas where improvements could be made to encourage competition, particularly for smaller clients.

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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has fined Sonali Bank (UK) Limited (SBUK) £3,250,600 and has imposed a restriction, preventing it from accepting deposits from new customers for 168 days. It has also fined the bank’s former money laundering reporting officer (MLRO), Steven Smith, £17,900 and prohibited him from performing the MLRO or compliance oversight functions at regulated firms. Continue reading…

Her are some remarks made by William Coen, Secretary General of the Basel Committee, at the panel discussion at the 2016 Annual Membership Meeting of the Institute of International Finance, Washington DC, 7 October 2016. Continue reading…

Nordea has on 30 September received the final Capital Joint Decision. The expected Common Equity Tier 1 ratio requirement by 30 September is 17.3%. The Common Equity Tier 1 requirement of 17.3% includes 85 bp (equivalent to a Common Equity Tier 1 requirement of EUR ~1.2bn and a total Own funds requirement of EUR ~1.5bn) due to the PD inspection performed by the college of supervisors (FSAs) during 2016 as well as the corporate risk weight memo (FI Ref. 15-13020).
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by Adam Oldfield

Technological innovations have transformed people’s expectations of the customer experience. With just a few taps on the Uber mobile app, consumers can have a taxi collect them from wherever they are, watch it on the app head towards them and pay without needing cash. Amazon online shopping provides tailored recommendations based on previous purchases and product search history. And it’s getting difficult to find a brand that isn’t available to its customers 24/7 on social media.
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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will mark six months since the implementation of the Senior Managers’ and Certification Regime by providing feedback on implementation so far and proposing measures to further strengthen the regime. The proposed rules will reinforce the importance of individual accountability at the most senior level of organisations.

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by Josée Weydert, Vincent Wellens and Jad Nader

One of the key principles of Luxembourg financial regulation is the obligation of professional secrecy (often referred to as the bank secrecy, the “Professional Secrecy Obligation”) laid down in Article 41(1) of the law dated 5 April 1993 on the financial sector, as amended (the “Financial Sector Act”). Outsourcing arrangements and, in particular, IT outsourcing operations which can lead to the disclosure of confidential data and thus to a potential breach of the Professional Secrecy Obligation are subject to rather strict legal conditions.
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Payday firm, CFO Lending, has entered into an agreement with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to provide over £34 million of redress to more than 97,000 customers for unfair practices. The redress consists of £31.9 million written-off customers’ outstanding balances and £2.9 million in cash payments to customers. CFO Lending also traded as Payday First, Flexible First, Money Resolve, Paycfo, Payday Advance and Payday Credit. Most of the firm’s customers had high-cost short-term credit loans (payday loans) but some customers had guarantor loans and some had both. Continue reading…