The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ("FRB"), the FDIC and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ("OCC") adopted a final rule to strengthen the leverage ratio standards for U.S. top-tier bank holding companies with more than $700 billion in consolidated total assets, or more than $10 trillion in assets under custody ("covered BHCs"), and their insured depository institution ("IDI") subsidiaries. Covered BHCs must maintain a leverage buffer greater than two percentage points above the minimum supplementary leverage ratio requirement of three percent, for a total of more

FINRA released the third podcast in a five-part series providing an overview of FINRA's 2014 examination priorities. The primary focus of the podcast is on FINRA's additional business conduct priorities. Specifically, it addresses areas of business conduct that include: Anti-money Laundering ("AML"): FINRA noted that one emerging trend relates to executing broker-dealers liquidating large volumes of low-priced securities. Due to the nature of the DVP/RVP customer relationship with the executing broker, FINRA found that the source of such low-priced securities is often masked unless the

At the SEC Annual International Institute for Securities Market Development, SEC Commissioner Michael Piwowar delivered opening remarks about the importance of effective regulation and the development of capital markets. Commissioner Piwowar first explained the significance of the two-week global training program, turning quickly to a discussion of capital markets. Commissioner Piwowar stated that an overarching theme of the training program is that "a jurisdiction's institutional and regulatory policy framework can strongly influence capital market regulation," noting that countries with

The SEC Division of Corporation Finance updated its frequently asked questions regarding Exchange Act Section 13(p), Rule 13p-1 and Form SD relating to disclosure regarding the use of conflict minerals. The updates are to questions 13 to 21. See: SEC FAQ on Conflict Minerals. Related news: Dodd-Frank FAQs: (i) Conflict Minerals and (ii) Disclosure of Payments by Resource Extraction Issuers (May 30, 2013).

The Asset Management Group of SIFMA ("SIFMA AMG") submitted a comment letter to the SEC and the Financial Stability Board ("FSB") regarding the recently released FSB-IOSCO joint consultative document, Assessment Methodologies for Identifying Non-Bank Non-Insurer Global Systemically Important Financial Institutions (January 2014), and the Treasury Office of Financial Research's ("OFR") Study on Asset Management and Financial Stability (September 2013). This comment letter summarizes the process undertaken and the findings of the survey. In the letter, SIFMA AMG encouraged its members and other