Oakbrook Solutions

The SEC is considering requiring that money market funds be priced daily and not fixed at $1.00.

What does this mean to the trust and securities industry?  Plenty.

Most legacy applications that support money market funds processing are hardwired with the assumption that these funds will always be priced at $1.00. Some things to consider: client statements, cash projections and sweep processing, and dividend and interest payments.

The end game potentially is that money market funds require processing just like a mutual fund which could increase their overall cost of operation.

Stay tuned.

Contributing author: Craig Cook, President

Well, it appears the federal regulators and the financial industry continue to underperform, MF Global being the latest example. Whatever regulations have been in place are not working (again). How many times will this have to happen?

It is going to take is some real tactical work to get done at the data level to create the transparency needed to monitor these firms. Although regulators will tell you they can monitor these firms effectively, it is impossible until an application and data project is executed to mine, store, and report this data to appropriate staff in order to monitor the firms.

Instead of spending money on more people to write regulations, let’s execute a project to collect the data and use our good old American technology “know-how” to solve the problem.

Contributing author: Craig Cook, President