UK bank hit with $150 million fine – told to fire employee

Barclays fined $150m for electronic FX trading misconduct

From Finextra –

“Barclays has been slapped with a $150 million fine by New York State’s financial regulator and told to fire an employee over an automated system used to reject unprofitable client orders on its electronic foreign exchange trading platform.

Barclays employed a system called 'Last Look' on its FX trading platform which placed a milliseconds-long hold period between a client placing an order and it being executed by the bank.

The delay was designed to be a defensive bulwark against high-frequency traders using their more nimble systems to outflank market makers like Barclays and acting on price information with "toxic flow" orders”.

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ABA Aims to Throw a Regulatory Blanket on Fintech

From Bank Innovation –

“The American Bankers Association today called for more regulation of financial startups.

In an interview on CNBC this morning, Rob Nichols, the new president and chief executive of the ABA, said there needs to be “a level playing field” between banks and fintech companies, and that more regulation of those fintech companies is the best way to achieve that.”

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Financial supervision - One regulator to rule them all

From The Economist –

“The new masters of the financial universe are neither bank bosses nor hedge-fund titans. They are the regulators whose job it is to make finance safer. Daniel Tarullo, Andrew Bailey and Danièle Nouy, senior regulators in America, Britain and the euro zone respectively, may not have the salaries, egos or profiles of Wall Street superstars, but the decisions they and people like them make are shaping the industry. As John Mack, a former boss of Morgan Stanley, reportedly told his successor: “The government is your number-one client.” Even for those who deeply mistrust finance, that ought to give pause.”

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