The CFTC Divisions of Clearing and Risk ("DCR") and Market Oversight ("DMO") granted extensions of previously issued no-action relief for certain inter-affiliate transactions. Letter 15-62 extends relief, which was granted previously in Letter 14-26 and extended by Letter 14-136, from the trade execution requirement for swaps between affiliates even when the conditions in CFTC Rule 50.52(b)-(d) are not satisfied. The relief was scheduled to end this year, but the new letter extends it through December 16, 2016. The requestors asked the CFTC for permanent relief originally, but the DMO said

FINRA settled charges with a discount retail brokerage firm of failing to (i) retain a large number of securities-related electronic records in the required format, (ii) retain certain categories of outgoing emails and (iii) have a "reasonable supervisory system in place to achieve compliance with certain SEC and FINRA books and records rules," which "contributed to its record-retention failures." Specifically, FINRA found that the firm: did not have centralized document-retention processes or procedures for all of its departments to follow; did not give any of its members the responsibility

Pursuant to the authority granted by Title VIII (Payment, Clearing and Settlement Supervision) of the Dodd-Frank Act, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve (FRB) requested comments on its proposal to use the rating system known as ORSOM ( Organization; Risk Management; Settlement; Operational Risk and Information Technology; and Market Support, Access, and Transparency) to review financial market infrastructures (FMIs). The FRB specified that: the ORSOM rating system is a supervisory tool that the Federal Reserve will use to provide a consistent internal framework for discussing FMI

CFTC Chair Massad outlined regulators' ongoing efforts with central clearing. He provided an overview of the regulatory framework in an evolving market. Speaking at the CME Group's Financial Leadership Conference, Chair Massad acknowledged market criticism of the current regulatory framework and expressed his own concerns about clearing regulation. Chair Massad discussed the possibility of a clearinghouse failure including how the markets and the regulators would respond, and what might be done to alleviate the effects of that scenario. "Some have suggested that a potential solution is to have

The FDIC requested comments on its proposed updates to a series of frequently asked questions and an accompanying introductory letter regarding identifying, accepting and reporting brokered deposits that were issued in January 2015. Comments on the proposed updates must be submitted by December 28, 2015.