Compliance

WASHINGTON -- The Securities and Exchange Commission is embarking on a nationwide inquiry into municipal securities that will lead to specific recommendations for changes to laws and regulations to better protect investors and the market.

WASHINGTON - Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro today said the SEC is embarking on a nationwide inquiry into municipal securities that will lead to specific recommendations for changes to laws and regulations to better protect investors and the market.

FINRA said Thursday that it has ordered Los Angeles-based Westpark Capital to pay $400,000 for supervisory system failures, and has suspended two officers for failing to supervise brokers who churned customer accounts and committed other violations.

Macaskill: "We didn't really understand what we owned."

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is preparing to take enforcement action against certain firms for selling municipal bonds to retail customers without disclosing material information, including that the bonds’ credit ratings had been spiraling downward, a FINRA official said Thursday.

Loan-level data about the mortgages pooled in those MBS was available to investors in Abacus and other such deals throughout the frothy heyday of CDOs

Though it was clear from the start that a Republican alternative on the consumer bureau was going to fail, GOP lawmakers dragged out the debate rather than allowing the measure to be voted on and moving on to some of the roughly 140 other amendments still to be considered.

Charles Schwab will pay an additional $35 million on top of the $200 million settlement announced April 20 in the District Court, Northern District of California case against the Schwab YieldPlus fund.

In an effort to help advisors meet regulatory requirements, State Street Corp. launched a suite of money maket funds services.

The staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission will hold a public seminar next month to help mutual funds comply with new electronic filing requirement that take effect next year.

In what could be a first of it’s kind action in the municipal bond market, the Internal Revenue Service has suspended tax-exempt bond attorney Michael W. McCall for at least 24 months from practicing before it for writing a false tax opinion.

In joint letter to legislators, trade associations ask that insurers be excluded from resolution funding.associations

Community bankers are close to winning a key change to the Senate regulatory reform bill that would require the government to base deposit insurance rates on assets instead of domestic deposits.

It is not often one hears someone nicknamed “Wild” Bill exhorting patience.

Bankers may be unable to stop a tax if it does get added to the legislation because Democrats view it as a way to ensure the reform bill saves the government money and Republicans consider it politically risky to oppose.

Maintaining a competitive environment is critical to the continuing development of new lifetime income solutions for employer-sponsored retirement plans, the SPARK Institute said in a joint letter to the Department of Labor and the Department of Treasury.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal recently filed suit against a bank and local money manager who served as custodians for two feeder funds that invested with convicted Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff.

Large banks have repeatedly prevailed in battles to preserve federal preemption in Congress and the courts, but that victory string is likely to be broken by the regulatory reform bill being debated in the Senate this week.

The more things change, the more they remain the same. In the early 1980s, the nation faced a serious retirement challenge, with Social Security estimated to have unfunded liabilities of about $6 trillion and worries about whether the Greatest Generation would be able to afford its retirement.

In an ironic twist, the Fed Reserve — one of the most derided regulators for its failure to prevent the financial crisis — may emerge from regulatory reform with its bank supervisory powers intact and authority enhanced.