Ownera, a startup building infrastructure to connect the tokenized asset networks of the traditional finance world, has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round from backers that included banking giant JPMorgan management firm LRC Group according to a story in Coindesk news. Ownera wants to connect the tokenized platforms and trading interfaces being launched by traditional finance companies. The platform is based on the open-source FINP2P protocol and supports any type of securities tokenization engine on any public or private blockchain plus traditional ledgers. Clients...

The next call for the FIF OTC Options Reporting Working Group will be on Monday September 12 at 11 am ET. The Working Group will continue its review of a draft FIF comment letter on FINRA Regulatory Notice 22-14, “OTC Options Reporting: FINRA Requests Comment on Proposed Trade Reporting Requirements for Over-The-Counter Options Transactions”.

On Thursday September 15 at 2 pm ET, representatives from the EY Tax Team will present on IRC 1446(f), withholding on dispositions of partnership interests. FIF has invited members of the Tax Information Reporting Working Group, the Back and Front Office Committees, and the Compliance Working Group to participate on this call.

The Back Office Committee will have its next call on Tuesday September 20 at 11 am ET to review applicable FICC, DTC, NSCC, SEC, MSRB, OCC, IRS and FINRA updates during the past month.

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.

The Front Office Committee will have its next call on Tuesday September 27 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.

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 provide an update on the current status of efforts to introduce a consolidated tape in Europe.

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 would like to thank Stevie Conlon, Anna Vayser and Robert Schwaba from Wolters Kluwer for agreeing to act as the Co-Chairs of the FIF Tax Information Reporting Working Group. If you are not a part of the Tax Information Reporting Working Group and would like to join, please update your profile here: https://fif.com/index.php/profile.