Societe Generale the third-largest French bank by market cap, has introduced new services for asset manager clients that are looking to respond to the increased demand from investors for cryptocurrencies according to a story in Coin Desk news. The services will allow the asset managers to offer crypto funds in a "simple and adapted" way within a framework that is compliant with European regulations, the bank said. The service has been adopted by French asset manager Arquant Capital SAS, which is opening a range of funds investing in crypto, starting with two products based on bitcoin...

On September 20, FIF submitted a comment letter on FINRA Regulatory Notice 22-14 (FINRA Requests Comment on Proposed Trade Reporting Requirements for Over-The-Counter Options Transactions). FIF would like to thank the members of the FIF OTC Options Reporting Working Group for their contributions in the drafting of the comment letter.

The next call for the TRACE Working Group will be on Tuesday September 27 at 2 pm ET. The Working Group will continue its review of a draft FIF comment letter on FINRA Regulatory Notice 22-17 and MSRB Notice 2022-07. These regulatory notices propose that trades in corporate, agency and municipal bonds be reported as soon as practical and no later than one minute after execution.

The Data and Technology Committee will have its next call on Wednesday September 28 at 10 am ET to review capacity, latency and volume data for the prior month for the equity, options, currency, crypto and futures markets. The spotlight presenter will be Mark Schaedel of DataBP, who will update on the current status of efforts to introduce a consolidated tape in Europe.

FIF has scheduled a call for the Cybersecurity and Compliance Working Groups on Thursday September 29 at 11 am ET. The agenda for the call will be to discuss a request sent by the SEC to FIF to discuss a planned rule proposal by the SEC relating to cybersecurity. The following is a description of the rule proposal from the SEC’s most recent regulatory agenda: “The Division is considering recommending that the Commission propose rules to address registrant cybersecurity risk and related disclosures, amendments to Regulation S-P and Regulation SCI, and other enhancements related to the...

The Front Office Committee will have its next call on Tuesday October 4 at 11 am ET to review applicable updates and notices from the SEC, FINRA, FINRA CAT and the equity and option exchanges. The spotlight presenters will be Matt Cohen and Rachel Andreassian of Provable Markets, who will discuss FIX for stock lending.

On Thursday October 6 at 4 pm ET, FIF will host a webinar on SEC Rule 15c2-11 (Publication or submission of quotations without specified information). The webinar will discuss application of the rule to quoting in unlisted equities and bonds, the expiration (on January 1, 2023) of the current relief relating to Rule 144A securities, and firm processes to validate that specific securities are eligible to be quoted. The moderator for the panel is Michael Lurie of Credit Suisse. The panelists are Edward Best of the Mayer Brown law firm, Chris Bok of OTC Markets and Jason Palsgrove of...

FIF TRACE Working Group. The TRACE Working Group continued its review of a draft FIF comment letter on FINRA Regulatory Notice 22-17 and MSRB Notice 2022-07. These regulatory notices propose that trades in corporate, agency and municipal bonds be reported as soon as practical and no later than one minute after execution. FIF Rule 606 Working Group. The Rule 606 Working Group continued its discussion of a proposed alternative for Rule 606(a) reporting for options. The Working Group discussed recent guidance from FINRA to a firm on reporting routes to options floor brokers and options algo...

The next call for the TRACE Working Group will be on Tuesday September 20 at 2 pm ET. The Working Group will continue its review of a draft FIF comment letter on FINRA Regulatory Notice 22-17 and MSRB Notice 2022-07. These regulatory notices propose that trades in corporate, agency and municipal bonds be reported as soon as practical and no later than one minute after execution.