European hedge fund advisors will soon be faced with the same challenges – and requirements – as their U.S. peers.

National Planning Holdings, Inc., one of the nation’s larger independent broker-dealer networks, announced this week it has contracted with business technology firm Erado to supply its more than 3,500 affiliated representatives with compliance services for social media applications.

Americas Trading Group said it selected NYSE Technologies to provide the backbone for its high-performance execution platform.

In what may be a sign of a tightening of regulation of social media use by investment advisors, the Securities Division of the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s Office is issuing new guidelines and best practices standards that will go into effect next year.

Orc Group said it released software to support electronic market making in North America.

BNY Mellon said it launched an app that will let its institutional customers move cash and securely access key reports and account information from iPad tablet computers.

Knight Capital Group said its earnings dropped by two-thirds in the second quarter, hurt by lower volume and volatility in stock trading.

State Street Corporation said it planned to reduce its technology staff by 850 employees, as part of a multi-year transformation of how it manages its information systems.

If you’re an advisor, you probably have a website. And you may belong to a social network such as LinkedIn or FaceBook. But to really make your website and social media efforts pay off, you’ll need to do more, experts say. The good news is that it’s not that difficult to strengthen your online presence -- and a stronger online presence can lead to more business. Here are eight tips for financial advisors to build a compelling online presence:

Liquidnet said its trading volume moved 2 percent ahead of last year, with an 18 percent jump in June.

The tech team at Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services has come up with a new smartphone app that allows independent financial advisors to open client accounts and electronically trade for clients from anywhere.

City Index, a London firm that specializes in bets on the movements of financial spreads and contracts for difference, has adopted a new service for monitoring its risks within each trading day.

In a world where the minute, second and even millisecond that you pull the trading trigger can materially affect the return you get, managers of mutual funds too often are slow to buy when prices are rising and too fast when prices are dropping.

The National Securities Clearing Corp. has developed a new automated service for clearing brokers to establish, monitor and update their relationships with broker-dealers for qualified special representative (QSR) and correspondent clearing transactions.

Schwab Advisor Services this week introduced a new software application called LaserApp that lets advisors automatically load new client data onto 80 different Schwab forms.

The Fidelity tech team has come up with a new way to help prevent independent financial advisors from enjoying their vacations

Morningstar has added sophisticated asset allocation and forecasting functionality to Morningstar Direct, its investment analysis platform for institutional investors.

The tech team at Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services has come up with a new way to help prevent independent financial advisors from enjoying their vacations: a new smartphone app that allows them to open client accounts and do electronic trading for clients from anywhere.

The new route will lower trading speeds between those two cities and also allow banks, hedge funds, brokers and other financial services institutions to execute trades faster with exchanges in Zurich, Milan, New York and Chicago that are also connected to the Level 3 network.

Many consumers don't know what near-field communication is, but the services the technology enables are becoming quite popular. That puts an onus on mobile payments projects that use NFC to move beyond disputes over revenue and other issues.