Greg Kilminster
Head of Product - Content
Stay informed with our monthly regulatory and compliance recap, providing you with a comprehensive overview of the latest regulatory events. For daily updates, check out our RegNews summaries here.
Enforcement
The summer months often see a respite in regulatory output but, whilst there was a lull in some activities, the regulators kept up the enforcement agenda, particularly regarding breaches and violations of recordkeeping regulations.
Global players such as Wells Fargo, BNP, Goldman Sachs and Citi were fined millions of dollars for recordkeeping breaches. Wells and BNP were also fined separately by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) along with nine other broker-dealers for further recordkeeping violations. In total, almost $500m in fines for recordkeeping failures were issued in August.
Away from recordkeeping, one of the biggest fines of the month was imposed by the US Department of Justice on Colombian financial services institution Corficolombiana. The $80 million fine was imposed for conspiring to violate the anti-bribery provision of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
Elsewhere, Nomura Securities was fined $35 million for fraudulent trading of Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities, and in Hong Kong the Securites and Futures Commission fined Changjiang Corporate Finance HK$20 million for sponsorship failings concerning six listing applications.
Consultations
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority launched its consultation on its securitisation rules and the UK’s HM Treasury began its consultation to extend the pensions cold calling ban to all other retail financial services. In the same RegNews coverage that day, the Bank of England also issued a consultation on discretionary payments by central counterparties.
The UK’s Payments Regulator also issued two consultations considering the reimbursement requirements for authorised push payment fraud.
At the end of August, several US agencies issued a consultation to introduce a new rule which would require certain entities to issue and maintain outstanding a minimum amount of long-term debt to increase stability and reduce the risk of bank runs and potential collapses.
Policies and Procedures
The summer break provides a convenient pause during which regulators can line up policy changes for the autumn months ahead. Hence, a number of significant regulatory developments were confirmed during the month, including the SEC’s confirmation of its private fund adviser reforms which require much more transparent disclosure to fund investors. The SEC also confirmed its new cyber risk rules which take effect from September. Still in the US, regulators acted to help the victims of the wildfires in Hawaii by amending a number of regulations and policies to help both residents and firms serving those residents. FINRA confirmed 22nd May 2024 for the changes to come into effect affecting covered agency transactions.
In Australia, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) also focused on greater transparency requirements with confirmation of new remuneration disclosure requirements. APRA also announced updates to its policy priorities for the rest of the year to focus effort on strengthening standards for financial stability issues affecting banks.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) finalised its new regulatory framework for stablecoins which aims to bring a high degree of value stability to stablecoins, and in Hong Kong regulators announced a Fintech Promotion Roadmap in an effort to get the region established as a hub of fintech activity in financial services.
Finally in August, regulators made several key appointments including at the Bank of England, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
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