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Members of Congress Urge SEC to Act on Rating Agency Reform The SEC held a roundtable May 14 to discuss a new system wherein an independent board would randomly assign initial ratings to nationally recognized statistical rating organizations (NRSROs). Needless to say, the concept generated many opinions.
May 16, 2013
Corporate Treasurers Wary of Floating NAV Corporate treasurers are highly skeptical about the merits of money-market funds switching to a floating net asset value. The general consensus among attendees at a recent roundtable was that Rule 2a-7 appears headed for an overhaul that is likely to include a floating NAV.
May 14, 2013
Treasurers Take Note: FSOC Refining Focus The FSOC unanimously approved its third annual report recently, underscoring several systemic threats facing the financial system of interest to treasurers, including market runs, cyberattack vulnerabilities, interest-rate reform and overreliance on intraday credit extensions.
May 07, 2013
Ex-FDIC Chair Sheila Bair: Floating NAV is ‘the Best Thing’ How does ex-FDIC Chair Sheila Bair think money-market mutual funds should be restructured, and why? A keynote speaker at the upcoming 2013 AFP Annual Conference, Bair didn't mince words when asked.
May 01, 2013
A Treasurer’s Advice on Implementing E-Healthcare Payments With the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) due to take full effect in 2014, treasurers for health plans are scrambling to implement electronic payments and remittances so their organizations can deliver mandated electronic funds transfer (EFT) and electronic remittance advice (ERA) to providers.
Apr 30, 2013
SEPA Direct Debit to Cause Corporates to Miss Deadline? At least one expert on payments in the eurozone is concerned that slow progress over implementing the SEPA direct debit may result in some businesses missing the deadline. Neil Burton, director, product strategy at Earthport PLC, sees early adoption rates as an indicator that many of the smaller and medium-sized organizations, and even a few large corporates, are not going to be ready by the February 2014 deadline.
Apr 23, 2013
Does the Cloud Help Card Payment Security? Depending on whom you ask, processing credit card payments in the cloud is either a great leap forward for security and compliance, or a big step backward. Actually, it can be either—depending on the type of cloud you have in mind and the size of your company.
Apr 16, 2013
SEC Commissioner Hints at Money Market Fund Proposal Near In a recent interview SEC Commissioner Daniel Gallagher said he expects new rules governing money-market mutual funds to be proposed within two months. The proposal would include a floating NAV, Gallagher said.
Apr 11, 2013
CFTC Extends Swap Reporting Enforcement for Businesses The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Wednesday issued an enforcement delay on reporting requirements for end-user counterparties to swap transactions. The scheduled reporting compliance date had been April 10 for counterparties that were neither "swap dealers" nor "major swap participants."
Apr 10, 2013
Survey: Canadian CFOs Less Optimistic than American Peers In a stark contrast to previous quarters, Canadian CFOs’ optimism in first quarter 2013 was fairly modest compared to that of their U.S. counterparts. According to a new survey, Canadian CFOs’ net optimism recovered only slightly, going from -6 in Q4 2012 to +7 in Q1 2013, while U.S. CFOs' optimism went from -11 to +32.
Apr 04, 2013
Congress and White House Divided on Corporate Tax Reform Back in 2009, the White House, Congress and Corporate America seemed to agree that corporate tax rates should be set in the range comparable to other developed nations and that lowering the basic tax rate was likely the best approach. Now, as policymakers begin to discuss specific details associated with lowering general rates, Congress and the White House appear to be on different tracks.
Apr 04, 2013
CFTC to Delay Swap Reporting Rules for Corporate End-Users? The compliance deadline for corporate end-user reporting requirements under Dodd-Frank is fast approaching. CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton believes enforcement should be suspended until the end of October.
Apr 03, 2013
Top Business Execs Renew Call for Corporate Tax Reform Leading U.S. corporations are pressuring Congress to cut corporate tax rates. Top executives from FedEx, CVS, Boeing, Disney and others sent a letter to the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the House Committee on Ways and Means and the Senate Finance Committee, calling for reform of the nation’s tax code.
Apr 01, 2013
AFP Fraudwatch: Massive DDoS Attack Disrupts Europe This week, we look at the broader implications of a major DDoS attack that disrupted Internet services for millions of Europeans. Also, a new information sharing center launches in the UK, and Chief Justice John Roberts gets hit with card fraud.
Apr 01, 2013
Three SEPA Migration Risks for Corporates Many corporate treasury departments already have SEPA migration plans in place and will be ramping up their efforts during 2013. But risks still abound.
Mar 29, 2013
Even Higher Capital Requirements for Canadian Banks? Going first on the Basel III capital requirements might not have been enough for Canadian banks. According to Canada’s federal budget, introduced last week, some banks may have to hold even higher capital buffers.
Mar 26, 2013
Obama Cyber Executive Order Stirs Things Up President Obama recently signed an executive order on cybersecurity, and issued Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) 21, which revokes the 10-year-old Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD) 7. Treasurers, whose firms have seemingly fended off hackers by themselves, can take comfort in knowing that the federal government is starting to coordinate its efforts inside the Beltway and with the private sector.
Mar 20, 2013
AFP Fraudwatch: Are PCI Compliance Fines Fair? This week, a look at the Genesco/Visa Lawsuit, which marks the first time that a retailer has sued a credit card company for losses related to fraud. Also, President Obama meets with top CEOs to discuss cybersecurity, a new plan is unveiled that could allow the CIA and NSA to access the FinCEN database, and six major banks get hit with DDoS attacks.
Mar 17, 2013
Basel Committee Could Simplify Regulations Global regulators are considering making amendments to Basel III, due to complaints that they are too complicated to be effective. Stefan Ingves, chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision said that a debate has arisen over whether the Basel regulatory framework is simple enough to implement, yet ambitious enough to make banks more secure.
Mar 14, 2013
10 Practitioner-Tested Debt Compliance Tips Cindy Fryer, CTP, Senior Director-Treasury, Endo Health Solutions, provided 10 recommendations to maintain debt compliance.
Mar 14, 2013
AFP Fraudwatch: Treasury Weighs Global Expansion, Cyber Risk This week, AFP Fraudwatch speaks with Michael Leiter, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) and a speaker at the upcoming CTC Corporate Treasurers Forum. Leiter shares his views on cyber risk, one of the most critical threats to companies expanding globally.
Mar 12, 2013
New Treasury Secretary Open to Foreign Corporate Tax Reform? Washington policymakers have become increasingly more vocal about their desires to fundamentally change the tax code that governs the income that U.S. based companies earn outside of the country. New Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew has indicated that he sees the potential for agreement on international taxation and made mention of this to Senators.
Mar 05, 2013
Basel III Update: EU Agrees to Bank Bonus Cap It was a big week for Basel III news. The European Union agreed to cap bank bonuses, the Banco Central do Brasil announced its new capital rules, and the U.S. Federal Reserve made clear its intent to finalize rules.
Mar 01, 2013
2013 AFP Risk Management Survey: Earnings Uncertainty Increasing Earnings uncertainty has increased in the last five years since the onset of the 2008 financial crisis and will continue for at least three more years, according to the 2013 Risk Management Survey released Wednesday by the Association for Financial Professionals.
Feb 27, 2013
Former SEC Officials Differ on MMF Reforms Last week, former officials of the Securities and Exchange Commission sent a letter to the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), urging it to stop pressuring the SEC to enforce tighter regulations on money-market funds. However, another former SEC chairman believes that the FSOC has no choice but to intervene.
Feb 26, 2013

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