Global harmonisation of financial regulation is high on the wish list of many trading firms and, in one sense at least, the regulators in Europe and the US are pretty well harmonised. Both have a tendency to publish long-awaited documents right before major holidays. Last week we saw another example of the regulation ‘holiday effect’ with the CFTC publishing its consultation on RegAT (aka SNPRM) in the Federal Register just ahead of Thanksgiving, thereby kicking off the 60-day consultation period.

The SWIFT Institute announces the launch of the 2017 Student Challenge, open to students of recognised universities and colleges across Canada. The competition asks participants to examine new methods of protection for banking channels to combat the increasing sophistication of cyber threats.

AxiomSL, an award winning global provider of regulatory reporting and risk management solutions, announced today that it will further strengthen its client service in the Middle East with the opening of an office in the Dubai International Financial Centre.

The new office has been created in response to the evolving regulatory environment across the Middle East and Africa with the introduction of IFRS 9, FATCA/CRS and ongoing pressure from regulatory and financial reporting regimes, such as CBUAE/DFSA, SAMA, QCB, FSB (SA) and many more.

Nationwide Building Society has become the first lender to sign up to EDM Mortgage Support Services’ PRISM solution, with other lenders expected to follow suit in the New Year.

PRISM – which stands for Portal for Risk Information Sharing in Mortgages – is an EDM Group hosted digital hub which brings the current manual process online, enabling lenders to access third-party data and make business decisions around the suitability of property in seconds as opposed to days, and promises to revolutionise the customer journey and experience.

Saxo Bank, the online multi-asset trading and investment specialist, today announces that it is launching a combination order ticket for all clients trading contract options. 

The combination order ticket will enable clients to deploy multi-legged option strategies by simultaneously placing orders to buy and/or sell different options from the same order ticket. 

Georgio Stoev, Futures and Listed Options Product Manager, said: “Instead of trading options leg by leg using multiple trade tickets, the different legs can now be delivered as one order and executed as one.” 

Horizon Software (Horizon), the leading global technology provider for electronic trading and investment management, has announced today that Eurobank Equities, the brokerage arm of Eurobank, one of the four systemic banks in Greece, has gone live with Horizon Software. Eurobank Equities chose Horizon’s Platform for Automated Trading for click trading, market making and agency trading on the Athens Exchange. It is the second Greek broker to go live with Horizon as a replacement for its legacy system.

TSYS announced that it has reached a long-term agreement to provide debit processing services for Virgin Money customers within the United Kingdom. Virgin Money previously selected TSYS’ market leading TS2® platform to support its UK cards portfolio.

Virgin Money is a UK-based retail bank, providing savings, mortgages, credit cards, current accounts, currency services, pensions, as well as investment and protection products to over three million customers across the UK. TSYS will provide a flexible and reliable card processing solution for Virgin Money.

I’ve recently been wowed by series such as House of Cards (Netflix) and The Man in the High Castle(Amazon), and am really blown away by The Crown (Netflix) and The Grand Tour (Amazon).   I’m blown away not because these are good internet shows, which they are, but by the budgets being spent on them.

 Silicon Valley analytics software firm FICO announced today that it has achieved Amazon Web Services (AWS) Financial Services Competency status. This designation recognises FICO for delivery of effective solutions to help organisations manage critical issues pertaining to the industry, such as risk management, data management, navigating compliance requirements and establishing governance models.