Compliance

Four more members of Congress have sent letters to the SEC expressing concerns or raising questions about provisions in its proposed muni advisor registration rules that would treat state and local appointed board members as muni advisers who would be subject to registration and regulation.

The more you hear about the SEC examination process, the more you realize that the examiners can't quickly recognize the honest advisors from the crooks, and are generally more interested in finding fault with the honest advisors than identifying the crooks.

Criminal charges were filed Thursday against a former financial advisor at UBS Financial Services whom the Securities and Exchange Commission charged with siphoning $3.3 million from investors to pay for luxury cars, prostitutes and gambling debts.

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged a hedge fund manager with diverting investment proceeds of over $12 million into other funds, which he then used to fund a real estate venture and a San Francisco record company.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday unanimously agreed to propose amendments to its Rule 2a-7 that would remove all credit rating references from the rule, which requires money market funds to invest in high-quality and very liquid short-term securities.

Even if the Dodd-Frank financial reform law is implemented flawlessly, two men in a position to know say it won't be enough to stop another financial crisis.

Despite controversy over a proposal to reign in the bonuses of Wall Street executives, the Securities and Exchange Commission voted 3-2 to issue for comment a plan to reduce incentives and prohibit institutions from maintaining compensation arrangements that encourage “inappropriate risks.”

Financial services firms are being specifically targeted in Web attacks by "criminal elements," according to Edward Powers, a principal at Deloitte & Touche. Those attackers “know what assets they’re going after and they’re going after you in a very orchestrated way,’’ he said at a meeting of the Wall Street Technology Association.

Anyone looking for the Treasury Secretary to endorse a specific approach to the future of the GSEs was surely disappointed by his testimony Tuesday, yet much could still be gleaned.

When the call comes from compliance that your branch examination is imminent, some advisors decide it’s time to take a vacation while others take the vapors. But branch exams should not be stressful or painful – if you follow these basic steps and integrate them into your practice.

House Financial Services Committee chairman Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., is warning the Securities and Exchange Commission that he does not support its proposed rules for a municipal advisor registration system because they are too broad and do not reflect congressional intent.

A House subcommittee hearing is scheduled for Wednesday that will focus on how the Dodd-Frank Act is affecting community banks and small business.

Nearly seven months after passing a bill that included a measure to limit interchange fees on debit cards, lawmakers were expressing buyer's remorse.

Our legal expert answers your questions about clients who brag about their other accounts.

A step in the right direction - or just a cost increase?

The director of the MIT AgeLab discusses the new era for dealing with the Baby boomer set.

Lincoln Financial Group says it took swift action to safeguard private consumer information and beef up its security policies, after it discovered vulnerabilities in a Web-based system that stored consumer account records for two of its business units.

In an effort to prevent a recurrence of past abuses by broker's brokers, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has issued a new draft rule that details what they must do to comply with pricing, fair-dealing, and transaction rules.

It seems we have reached the absolute bottom of the barrel in terms of regulatory efficiency. If the SEC is spending weeks on trivial issues and completely missing Bernie Madoff then it is clear that something is seriously broken.

How you assess the banking industry's health from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s latest earnings report may depend on which page you turn to.