Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Pimco makes a deal

Pacific Investment Management Co. has agreed to buy Gurtin Municipal Bond Management, which manages "$14 billion in assets for wealthy individuals." The deal is Pimco’s first acquisition under new CEO Emmanuel Roman. Pimco, which manages $1.7 trillion in total assets, plans to combine Gurtin with its own muni bond unit, which will manage a total of $38 billion of municipal bonds.

Wall Street Journal

It's the lack of supervision

Violent price swings in cryptocurrencies may be the result of “unscrupulous traders wielding purpose-built software” in order to manipulate prices, a “growing concern for regulators — and even for some proponents of the digital coins.” While trading programs exist in other markets, including stocks, and can “be used for both legitimate and manipulative strategies … in crypto, the critical difference is the lack of oversight. While established markets like the New York Stock Exchange monitor for illegal trading and punish rule-breakers, crypto exchanges vary widely in their surveillance efforts. Most crypto exchanges are regulated lightly, if at all. The result is that crypto bots can be used to execute abusive strategies on an industrial scale.”

The paper created its own digital currency and found it is “relatively easy” to make one, but not as simple to fashion one that is “valuable, useful and has widespread appeal.”

Financial Times

The politics of politics

The Federal Reserve’s proposal to reduce oversight on some American banks won’t include large foreign banks that operate in the U.S., at least not yet. However, Randal Quarles, the Fed’s vice chairman for supervision, told the Senate Banking Committee it would “review our regulatory framework to improve the manner in which we deal with the particular risks” of foreign banks. Quarles and other regulators testifying had to "walk a fine line" to reassure the GOP of swift movement implementing regulatory relief, while fending off Democratic fears regulators "are going too far, too fast."

Asset managers push diversity

An American version of the Diversity Project, which seeks greater diversity in the asset management industry, was launched on Tuesday. Modeled on a British program, it aims to accelerate “progress towards a more inclusive culture across all demographics.” The group is sponsored by the National Investment Company Service Association, a trade group for asset managers, and includes 14 member companies, including State Street Global Advisors and Northern Trust.

Cost of dealing with Iran

The U.K.’s Standard Chartered Bank is facing fines of as much as $1.5 billion from American authorities who believe the bank may have breached U.S. sanctions prohibiting business dealings with Iran “even after it signed a deferred prosecution agreement and paid a $667 million fine to avoid criminal charges in 2012.” The bank is looking to negotiate the size of the fines downward.

Elsewhere

Looking for more

Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting said Wells Fargo is not doing enough to repay 600,000 auto loan customers who the bank pushed into buying auto insurance they didn’t need. “We are not comfortable where we are with them,” Otting told the Senate Banking Committee.

Blockchain, Italian style

The Italian Banking Association said it successfully passed the first test of its blockchain-based interbank system. The system, which includes 14 banks, seeks to “boost the processing time of operations, increase the transparency of banking information, and enable the verification and exchange of information directly within the application.”

Quotable

“Diversity brings different perspectives, drives innovation and sparks creativity. We have seen the benefits of inclusion and it is time for the asset management industry to take the lead.” — Dan Houlihan, chairman of the National Investment Company Service Association and head of Northern Trust Asset Servicing.