Practice

Fifty-four percent of adults age 65 or older are confident in their retirement preparedness, according to Charles Schwab’s latest quarterly retirement pulse survey. But only 26% of those between the ages of 18 and 34 share those feelings.

The CFA Institute this week said 43% of the 185 investment professionals who sat for the Certificate in Investment Performance Measurement (CIPM) program exam in April managed to achieve a passing grade and can now add the CIPM designation to their resumes.

A report conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit and released this week by SAS, the big business analytics software firm, warns that financial institutions, particularly in the U.S., are “feeling too comfortable” about their risk management systems and suggests they may be unprepared for the next crisis.

Two years after proposing rules to avert misuse of client assets on the scale of the Madoff ponzi scheme, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed amendments that would strengthen oversight of broker-dealer audits.

Huntington Bancshares this week rolled out mobile banking applications for customers' iPhones and Android-powered smartphones that will allow them to check balances, pay bills and transfer funds on the fly.

Portware said it is working with Thomson Reuters to create a broad range of trading services, available globally on-demand.

Orange Business Services said it launched an online store for selling applications that can run on its intelligent trading turret devices. The apps will run on its Open Trade smart turret, introduced in 2010 and intended to be used as a “personal trading assistant.''

A survey of 1,009 adults by Edward Jones on their retirement savings found good news and bad news. While 15% said their portfolios have recovered from the economic downturn, up from 12% in April 2010, 25% are not saving for retirement, up from 16% a year ago.

The question of whether some banks are still "too big to fail" will not be settled until the next crisis. That, in a nutshell, was the takeaway from a House Financial Services Committee hearing on Tuesday, where lawmakers fought with each other over whether the Dodd-Frank Act adequately addressed the problem.

When Congress threatened to cap the interchange fees that banks collect on debit card transactions, the industry argued that such a move would force it to kill off its own debit rewards programs. As it turns out, the demise of those programs might inconvenience consumers but it is unlikely to deal banks much of a financial blow.