Compliance hiring at fever-pitch!

My (pessimistic) prognosis of  'One Compliance Kommissar behind every productive Staffer' is soon (already?) sad reality. Wish the same could be said about politicians and civil servants! Did Ancient Rome not die after suffocationg on legal and bureaucratic overkill?
Deutsche Bank hiring in compliance - Business Insider

Commodity Trading - A Mystery

While this news item illustrates the extraordinary influence the - mostly Switzerland-based - Commodity Trading firms have in the markets the real mystery is the profitability of their business model. Given the nature of the business most transactions - if not all - are conducted with counter parties outside of Switzerland. That leads to the questions where trades are booked and taxes are paid. Do the Swiss really care, do the authorities in Geneva and Zug have the resources to police all transactions? Or are they happy with the taxes they receive, following the motto that something is better than nothing. The trading firms could leave at a drop of a hat and decamp to friendlier climes (Dubai? Cayman?) if tax officials are becoming too nosey. And how are these wondrous profits achieved? Most deals are over-the-counter, in physicals. Counter parties are often little-supervised and basically unregulated entities in places that rank very low on the transparency side. Has any of the numerous regulators that harass the financial industry ever shown interest to have a close look at the commodity trading universe? Not to forget the media that could also stop writing fawning pieces on the 'success' that the trading firms have and the fabulous wealth their senior executives enjoy.

Dark Pools - who brings light into them?

News that Credit Suisse has reached a settlement on the 'dark pool' probe may bring relief to its shareholders, management and some market professionals. But it still leaves open the question how the practice of executing orders in these pools is policed. By definition the transactions are designed to provide a certain (total?) amount of privacy and anonymity. Market impact is (hopefully in the eyes of the users) lessened. But are the prices achieved fair - especially for the ultimate owners of the assets bought or sold, the investors holding the mutual funds or pension funds that are using dark pools? Are all transactions logged and published so that the end investor can check them against a consolidated tape (price, amount and exact time?). If not then this leaves too much leeway and encourages trickery that would rival the abuses that came to light in the foreign exchange and interbank (Libor) markets.

Money Laudering: what is a 'suspicious' transaction?

Apart from finance professionals being clairvoyants it is extremely tricky to safely fulfil the regulator's insistence to report all suspicious transactions. With hindsight it is always possible for authorities to hit banks and asset managers with a big club and claim a transaction should have been reported. The only really safe procedure would be to report ALL transactions and put the burden of compliance on the shoulders of the regulators. Alternatively there should be an EXHAUSTIVE and detailed checklist giving details of any signs that should arouse suspicion. As always we want to remind readers that in our opinion poor and unnecessary legislation or sloppy work by police authorities are the real reasons for the anti-money laundering hysteria. There was no more crime before the politicians invented the need to control citizens more and more in a costly, intrusive - and ultimately ineffective - way.

Regulatory Nightmare is here and now!

I quite often said that the control freaks in charge of our lives - i.e. psychopathic politicians - will not be satisfied with extending ever-more intrusive regulation into all aspects of society. In the realm of banking and finance that would mean that - in addition of the armies of 'compliance' staff that is an expensive millstone around the necks of savers and investors - there would ultimately have to be one 'Kommissar' next to each productive employee. Ultimately the whole economic system would atrophy under this burden - the direction is clear for anyone who has seen the 'success' of the Cuban economic model.
U.S. Seeks Eyes Inside Banks' Offices (Wall Street Journal)