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Cowen has completed the integration of Cowen Execution Services’ prime brokerage business, which was acquired as part of Cowen’s acquisition of Convergex earlier this year.
FINRA approved the integration of the acquired business into Cowen’s prime services division, Cowen Prime Services, in August 2017.
Cowen’s prime services and outsourced trading activities are now consolidated and completely focused on delivering a comprehensive suite of global solutions and services that will assist our clients in their efforts to outperform their peers and benchmarks.
“Following significant efforts in recent months by personnel in both organisations, we are pleased to have finalised
By Jean Farrugia & Robert Higgans, DF Advocates – One of the innovative fund structures available in Malta, the Notified Alternative Investment Fund (NAIF) Regime, which was launched by the Malta Financial Services Authority in April 2016, has come up for review by the Authority following its commitment to assess the said regime after one year of its introduction.
The MFSA has, in this regard, recently issued a consultation document on 17 August 2017, on proposed amendments to the NAIF Regime and requested feedback from interested parties on certain proposed updates to the said regime.
Following the publication of the regime
Q&A with Stephen Paris, Director and Financial Services Industry Leader at Deloitte, & Patrick Mangion, Principal, Financial Services Industry at Deloitte
Over the past decade, the regulatory landscape for funds has undergone a number of major developments at both European and national level. What was the impact on the fund industry?
To say that the regulatory environment for funds has undergone anything short of a transformation in recent years would be an understatement. Since the 2008 financial crisis, a tremendous effort has been made at a European level to harmonise pockets of financial services legislation that were previously regulated in
By Nicholas Zahra, CFA, Bastion Wealth, & Anabel Mifsud, SGGG FEXserv Fund Services – Malta is one of the smaller players in the asset management world, which tends to appeal to the smaller managers, and to investors who have a business case for their choice of jurisdiction.
As a domicile and financial centre, one can fairly summarise both Malta’s advantages and disadvantages as being its small size, where the chances are that smaller players get levels of attention reserved for large players in the established jurisdictions.
The choice of jurisdiction is just one question from many that should be asked,
There is never an easy time to launch a hedge fund. With a raft of regulatory compliance considerations, the latest – and potentially most ominous – being MiFID 2 when it comes into effect on 3 January, costs are rising. And at the same time, investors continue to apply fee pressures.
Factor in that the markets themselves have not been easy in recent times, making the search for alpha a constant challenge, and there is little wonder that fund jurisdictions have seen a slowdown in fund growth.
“It is really the result of a plethora of issues that managers must
Q&A with Joseph Camilleri, Executive Head, Business Development & Corporate Services at BOV Fund Services Ltd
Within the context of a highly regulated fund industry, how is Malta coping to ensure it keeps pace with bigger fund domiciles?
Most people would agree that the fund industry is increasingly becoming overcrowded with regulation, well intended as that may be. This poses challenges to all stakeholders; be they investors, investment managers, service providers, or fund domiciles.
Malta is in no way an exception to thisº The challenges may seem somewhat bigger and more difficult to address if the domicile is a
Blockchain has the potential to revolutionise the financial industry by removing reliance on intermediaries to clear and settle accounts and introduce significant cost savings. One survey, by Bain & Co, estimates that total savings to global financial markets could reach anywhere from USD15 billion to USD35 billion.
To underscore just how much excitement there has been since bitcoin – the cryptocurrency developed by Satoshi Nakamoto (a pseudonym) that uses blockchain technology – first emerged in 2009, firms that have engaged in research and development of this technology have raised more than USD1.55 billion in venture capital since 2012, according to CB Insights.
Circle Partners (Circle) is an independent fund administrator with offices across the EU, the Americas and Hong Kong. Circle has the ability to advise on set ups of funds and guide start-up and emerging managers through the whole process of bringing a new fund to market in all major fund jurisdictions.
By extension, Circle has a large network of local counter-parties based in Malta and as Peter Jakubicka (pictured), Business Development Manager at Circle explains: “We can offer a ‘one-stop shop’ solution from the set-up phase through to launch including brokers, custodians, auditors; basically all of the functions that are
Key to the success of any fund jurisdiction is a commitment to constant innovation and in that respect Malta, a tiny island nestled in the Mediterranean, has much to be excited about. Whether it is the streamlining of regulation, the introduction of innovative manager-led products in the form of the Notified AIF, a commitment to becoming Europe’s leading securitisation market, or indeed Europe’s leading hub for blockchain technology, Malta continues to push the boundaries.
A recent survey of professionals working in Malta’s financial services industry conducted by Managing Partners Group (MPG) underscored the collective sense of optimism. Currently, the industry
In a complete reversal of the previous administration’s hardline approach to algo trading, the CFTC has revealed it will review and simplify its oversight, calling the previous approach “a top-level disregard for the enormity of the trading method spectrum, and, therefore, a disregard for the proper assessment of market risk posed throughout that broad spectrum.”
CFTC Commissioner Brian Quintenz (pictured), who is also the sponsor of its Technology Advisory Committee (TAC), has called the Commission’s attempt to regulate automated trading last December a “lame-duck re-proposal of Regulated Automated Trading (that) attempted to address the breadth of the AT person definition
