Rio gets the Olympics, London gets Itaú
August 19, 2012--A UK division of Itaú Unibanco's asset management business has won Financial Services Authority authorisation, according to the regulator's register, in a step that marks a "strategic moment" for the Brazilian firm in Europe.
In a statement to Financial News, a spokesman for Itaú said: “This official authorisation will allow Itaú Asset Management to serve an important client base in Europe in order to increase our offer of asset products managed worldwide.
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Source: Financial News
Treasury Committee publishes LIBOR report
August 18, 2012--The Treasury Select Committee published its report into LIBOR on 18 August, 2012 following its inquiry into the Final Notice issued by the Financial Services Authority with respect to Barclays on 27 June, 2012.
Report: Fixing LIBOR: Some preliminary findings
Alongside the report, a number of related pieces of supplementary and written evidence will also be published.
Commenting on the report, the Chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, Andrew Tyrie MP, said:
"As a result of this inquiry, a good deal of further information has now been brought into the public domain.
The Committee has called for action in a number of areas, including: higher fines for firms that fail to co-operate with regulators, the need to examine gaps in the criminal law, and a much stronger governance framework at the Bank of England.
Source: www.parliament.uk
ECB to supervise all eurozone banks: report
August 17, 2012--The European Commission wants the European Central Bank to act as supervisor for all eurozone banks, not just the region's biggest, the business daily Handelsblatt reported on Friday.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel had said at the end of June that the new banking supervisory authority, which is to be set up under the umbrella of the ECB, should be responsible for the single currency area's 25 biggest banks.
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Source: EUbusiness
Barclays to launch discretionary service on all major platforms
August 17, 2012-Barclays is to launch its discretionary portfolio management service (DPMS) and multi-manager range on all major platforms by the end of 2012, in a massive push ahead of the retail distribution review (RDR).
The firm’s DPMS, which launched in April this year, provides an outsourcing investment service through five managed portfolios, while the Barclays Global Access range comprises a range of open architecture multi-manager funds.
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Source: CityWire
CME Clearing Europe to Accept Gold as Collateral on Demand
August 17, 2012--CME Clearing Europe will accept physical gold as collateral, extending the list of assets it's prepared to receive as regulators globally push more derivatives trading through clearing houses.
CME Group Inc. (CME)’s European clearing house, based in London, appointed Deutsche Bank AG (DBK), HSBC Holdings Plc and JPMorgan Chase & Co. as gold depositaries. There will be a 15 percent charge on the market value of gold deposits and a limit of $200 million or 20 percent of the overall initial margin requirement per clearing member based on whichever is lower, Andrew Lamb, chief executive officer of CME Clearing Europe, said today.
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Source: Bloomberg BusinessWeek
UBS ETFs on MSCI Brazil launched on Xetra
August 17, 2012--Two new exchange-listed equity index funds from the issuer UBS Global Asset Management have been tradable in Deutsche Börse's XTF segment since Friday.
ETF name: UBS (Irl) ETF plc-MSCI Brazil (USD) I-dis
Asset class: equity index ETF
ISIN: IE00B7VZ2C84
Total expense ratio: 0.43 percent
Distribution policy: distributing
Benchmark: MSCI Brazil Index
ETF name: UBS (Irl) ETF plc-MSCI Brazil (USD) A-dis
Asset class: equity index ETF
ISIN: IE00B6SBCY47
Total expense ratio: 0.60 percent
Distribution policy: distributing
Benchmark: MSCI Brazil Index
The two new UBS ETFs enable investors to participate in the performance of enterprises based in Brazil. The MSCI Brazil Index covers large and mid cap companies with a total market capitalisation of 84%. The difference between the two UBS ETFs is the asset class. The class "I" ETF is aimed primarily at institutional investors, and the class "A" ETF at private clients.
The product offering in Deutsche Boerse’s XTF segment currently comprises a total of 999 exchange-listed index funds, making it the largest offering of all European stock exchanges. This selection, together with an average monthly trading volume of €12 billion, makes Xetra Europe’s leading trading venue for ETFs.
Source: Xetra
ESMA publishes summary of responses to its consultation on materiality in financial reporting
August 16, 2012--ESMA published today a summary of responses received to its consultation paper on materiality in financial reporting. The summary provides an overview of the key issues raised by respondants in relation to the consultation paper.
In November 2011, ESMA issued a consultation paper entitled ‘Considerations of Materiality in Financial Reporting’ to seek comments from interested parties about their understanding of various aspects of materiality in an effort to contribute to a consistent application of this important concept in financial reporting. The deadline for responses was 31 March 2012.
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Source: ESMA
AMF- 2012 Risk And Trend Mapping For Financial Market And Savings
August 16, 2012--SUMMARY OF RISKS IDENTIFIED AND ACTION TAKEN BY
THE AMF
Scope of the analysis
The annual risk and trend mapping report from the Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF) describes
the main trends on markets and in financing (Chapter 1), market structure and intermediation (Chapter 2), household saving (Chapter 3) and asset management (Chapter 4).
The report has several
goals. It seeks to set France’s situation within a broader context that captures major international
trends and to appraise the latest research with a view to better understanding the often complex and
fast-moving changes taking place within our environment. It also brings together different perspectives:
supply and demand, retail and wholesale, market operation and business strategy, macro and micro.
Finally, it is intended to highlight observations and areas of concern flagged by AMF staff when carrying out the regulator’s supervisory and inspection duties and in their dealings with retail investors.
Review of 2011 and early 2012 The main event of 2011 was the deepening sovereign debt crisis in Europe, which reached a “systemic dimension”1 in summer 2011, leading to market closures in the second half of the year. In this uncertain setting, marked by high levels of volatility and sharp swings in risk aversion, the major trends identified during the last mapping exercise in May 2011 persisted and became more pronounced. Bond markets and banks remained under heavy pressure, equities were flat, and there was no real upturn in securitisation, while emerging markets and high yield segments continued to exert strong appeal(Chapter 1).
Retail investors showed a marked preference for bank deposits over life insurance, drawn by the returns and liquidity of these products as they built up precautionary savings. The proportion of low-risk assets in the financial assets of individual investors rose again in 2011 to account for 80% of the total. Meanwhile, direct and indirect holdings of equities fell once more, and now account for less than 11% of household financial assets (Chapter 3). Finally, the challenging conditions identified for French asset management in 2010 carried through to 2011. Assets under management shrank by 10%, reverting to 2005 levels (Chapter 4).
view the AMF- 2012 Risk And Trend Mapping For Financial Market And Savings
Source: AMF
Six new iShares bond and commodity index ETFs launched on Xetra
August 16, 2012--Four new commodity index and two new bond index ETFs issued by iShares have been tradable in Deutsche Börse's XTF segment since Thursday.
The four new iShares commodity index ETFs from the S&P GSCI index family give investors the opportunity to target participation in performance of four commodity groups: agriculture, energy, industrial metals and a comprehensive commodity basket. Futures contracts are used to track the indices, with roll costs optimised. The weighting of a commodity component in the index may not exceed a maximum of 35% and no single legal commodity component may be allocated a weight of more than 20%.
The agricultural commodities group is currently comprised of cotton, coffee, cocoa, corn, soy beans, wheat and sugar. The energy sector is composed of unleaded petrol, diesel, natural gas, Brent crude and WTI. Industrial metals are made up of aluminium, lead, copper, nickel and zinc. The commodities basket covers the agricultural, precious metals, energy, industrial metals and livestock sectors.
iShares S&P GSCI Dynamic Roll Agriculture Swap (DE000A1J0ZD5)
iShares S&P GSCI Dynamic Roll Energy Swap (DE000A1J0ZE3)
iShares S&P GSCI Dynamic Roll Industrial Metals Swap (DE000A1J0ZF0)
iShares S&P GSCI Dynamic Roll Commodity Swap (DE000A1J0ZC7)
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Source: Deutsche Börse
Minutes of the Monetary Policy Committee Meeting held on 1 & 2 August 2012
August 15, 2012--The Governor invited the Committee to vote on the propositions that:
Bank Rate should be maintained at 0.5%;
The Bank of England should continue with the programme of asset purchases totalling £375 billion financed by the issuance of central bank reserves.
Regarding Bank Rate, the Committee voted unanimously in favour of the proposition.
Regarding the stock of asset purchases, the Committee voted unanimously in favour of the proposition.
view the Minutes of the Monetary Policy Committee Meeting held on 1 and 2 August 2012
Source: Bank of England
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