The U.S. Senate Banking Committee announced that it will hold an open session on February 6, 2014, to conduct a hearing on oversight of financial stability and data security. The following witnesses are scheduled to appear: Mary Miller, Undersecretary for Domestic Finance, U.S. Department of the Treasury; Daniel Tarullo, Governor, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; Martin Gruenberg, Chair, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (view written testimony); Tom Curry, Comptroller of the Currency, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (view written testimony); Mary Jo White, Chair

The Managed Funds Association ("MFA") submitted a letter to the Cayman Islands Ministry of Financial Services in response to its consultation on beneficial ownership of Cayman Islands-Registered Companies. The consultation requests comment on, among other things, the implementation of a central registry of the beneficial ownership and control of companies in the Cayman Islands. In the letter, MFA explains that managers of Cayman Islands funds are already subject to regulatory regimes designed to provide international transparency and combat money laundering, and that managers will need to

FINRA released a podcast summarizing the latest FINRA notices, compliance resources and news from January 2014. The podcast discussed recent FINRA Regulatory Notices, including: Notice 14-01 on Final Renewal Statements for broker-dealers and investment advisors; Notice 14-02, which requested comments by February 26, 2014, on amendments to Rule 4210 that reconsider the margin requirements applicable to TBA and other agency transactions; Notice 14-03, which published a new tiered rate schedule for processing unit fees, intermediary unit fees, beneficial ownership and non-objecting beneficial

The House Financial Services Committee held a full committee hearing to examine the impact of the Volcker Rule. The following witnesses testified: Daniel Tarullo, Governor, Federal Reserve Board; Mary Jo White, Chair, Securities and Exchange Commission; Thomas Curry, Comptroller of the Currency, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; Martin Gruenberg, Chair, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; and Mark Wetjen, Acting Chair, Commodity Futures Trading Commission. See also: Archived Webcast of the Hearing; Committee Memorandum; FRB Release on Tarullo's Statement; OCC Release on Curry's

The U.S. Treasury and Finance Canada announced today that the U.S. and Canada signed an Intergovernmental Agreement ("IGA") under FATCA. The U.S. Treasury also announced that an IGA was signed with Hungary. The U.S.-Canada IGA is a Model 1A (Reciprocal) version, under which financial institutions in Canada will report information with respect to accounts held by U.S. citizens, residents (including dual U.S./Canadian residents) and entities in Canada to the Canada Revenue Agency ("CRA"). The CRA will then automatically exchange such information with the U.S. IRS pursuant to the existing Canada