Sifma: News on the capital markets, securities and financial industry
01/12/2011 SIFMA
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House challenges CFTC's rule-making on derivatives
trading
Rather than going after the overhaul of financial regulations as a
whole, House Republicans are taking a different approach. Their
latest move is a legislative effort focused on rule-making by the
Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Read the SIFMA news release. Politico (Washington, D.C.)(11/30)
Central banks try to ease funding woes as crisis
continues
The Federal Reserve led several central banks in cutting
dollar-borrowing costs for banks as officials try to resolve
Europe's sovereign-debt crisis. The moves caused a rally in stocks
and commodities. The European Central Bank and central banks in the
U.K., Switzerland, Japan and Canada also participated. The central
banks said they would establish a bilateral swap program to ease
funding challenges using any of their currencies. Bloomberg(11/30), Reuters(12/1), BBC(11/30), The New York Times (tiered subscription
model)(11/30), The Telegraph (London)(11/30), The Guardian (London)(11/30)
MSRB offers broker-dealers guidance for muni
sales
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board said that when
broker-dealers sell municipal securities in the secondary market,
they are not required to make online searches first. SIFMA welcomed
the MSRB's guidance. "We appreciate that the needle appears to have
moved here, and the regulators clearly have taken some of our
comments into consideration," said Leslie Norwood, managing
director and co-head of the municipal securities division at SIFMA.
Read the SIFMA letter. The Bond Buyer (special access for readers of SIFMA
SmartBrief)(12/1)
OCC proposes rule to strip credit-rating
references
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency proposed a rule that
would replace credit ratings with alternative measures of
creditworthiness in securities offerings and investment securities.
"National banks and federal savings associations would be expected
to continue to maintain appropriate ongoing reviews of their
investment portfolios," the office said. Bloomberg Businessweek(11/30)
- Other News
Fed appoints Gibson as director of
regulatory division
The Wall Street Journal (12/1)
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Progress continues on legal-entity
identifiers
The Financial Stability Board is working on a governance framework
for legal-entity identifiers, which have gained momentum and
support in the past few months. "We have achieved a tremendous
amount globally to get buy-in. We have the [Group of 20] finance
ministers and leaders endorsing the LEI, so from a top-down
perspective, it is all going well," said David Strongin, SIFMA's
managing director. "But I think our challenge now is to ensure
that, as countries start to implement this, they do it in a way
that is going to meet the needs of each local marketplace, but also
the unique LEI ... that we have set up globally." Learn more about LEI. WatersTechnology.com(11/30)