Commentary

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Alarm Raised on Stock Loans for "Withholding Tax Schemes”

Findings Point to a New Role for Emerging Fintech

Author: David Schwartz J.D. CPA
European commissioners are reviewing a study from their securities and market authority (ESMA) that includes a recommendation for new laws to combat unfair trading practices and an extended remit for National Competent Authorities (NCAs) to conduct snap audits of securities loans and transactors. Loans deemed to be suspicious would prompt an inquiry to determine penalties for unfair strategies and inappropriate beneficiaries. However, useful audit results may be doubtful based on our...
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Tags: securities lending, innovation, datasets, ESMA, cross-border, Empty Voting, Financial Innovation, Blockchain, DLT, RMA

Wednesday, December 4, 2019

ESG-compliant Solutions to Stock Lending Bans

Distributed Ledger Technology in Service to Activist Investors

Author: Ed Blount
Stock lending agents and prime brokers were challenged with a once-in-a-career opportunity after the December 3rd, 2019 announcement that Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), the world’s largest pension fund, had decided to ban the lending of their offshore stocks -- nearly half of their holdings. That bold decision by the fund's CIO will reportedly cost as much as $300 million in lost annual income and “could prove hugely disruptive to equity markets if...
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Monday, May 13, 2019

Distributed Ledger Technologies in Securities Finance

As Revolutionary as Central Securities Depositories?

Author: Ed Blount
The most powerful Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) for securities finance will be cloud-based data lakes in which blockchains and shared ledgers form the currents and eddies. Smart contracts will power the mills that channel the data flows to provide services to their participants. In their potential, DLTs can reengineer current securities processes in the same way that central securities depositories (CSD) did in the 1970s … so long as the looming limitations can be overcome.
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Thursday, January 10, 2019

Taking Stock of Blockchain for Improving Securities Services

Initial hype has ebbed and real progress is being made

Author: Ed Blount
The early torrent of media hyperbole about distributed ledger technologies (DLT), such as blockchain and shared ledgers, has now been supplanted by reflection on lessons learned. Scaling concerns were allayed to some degree by DTCC’s November 2018 report that its study of throughput capacity for DLT was sufficient to handle massive U.S. equity trading volumes. More positive ink came as a group of 15 global banks reportedly eased ahead from initial testing to a planned 2Q19 start date...
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Monday, April 24, 2017

No Regulatory Relief for Securities Finance

Financial CHOICE Act leaves constraints intact

Author: Ed Blount
The latest legislative offering in the U.S., the Financial CHOICE Act, does nothing for securities finance. Nothing in the bill provides an exemption to the funding markets from the crushing weight of regulatory reform. At present, both political parties in the US seem willing to accept an outcome where the global funding markets are road kill from the reform steamroller. Many experts believe this legislative failure is due to analytic omissions on the...
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Tags: Reconsideration

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Journal Commentaries

 

Keep Regulation Functional (October 2008)

CSFME’s Executive Director Ed Blount interviews SEC Chairman Chris Cox.
American Banking Association Banking Journal
https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-187494664/keep-functional-regulation-how-financial-regulation

 

The Bear Market Posse, or Counterparty Risk Management during the Recent Turmoil (Sept.  2008)

by Ed Blount
The RMA Journal, v91n1, 28-32, 5 pages Sep 2008.

 

Searching for New Paradigms at BIS (July 2008)

by Ed Blount
Unexpected deficiencies in bank capital after recent market turmoil has regulators rethinking aspects of Basel II and “value at risk.”  
American Banking Association Banking Journal  
https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-181991450/searching-for-new-paradigms-at-bis-market-turmoil

 

Will Basel II Affect The Competitive Landscape? (September 2003)

By Ed Blount
Newly elected Basel Committee Chairman Caruana, Governor of the Bank of Spain, gives his views on the revised Basel capital accord, relative to its potential effects on competition and risk management in banking markets.
American Banking Association Banking Journal
https://www.questia.com/read/1G1-108008773/will-basel-ii-affect-the-competitive-landscape-the​