National Financial announced February 1 that it is expanding its alliance program by adding Fetter Logic Inc. to offer a suite of data management tools through its StreetScape platform allowing "away" asset reporting, aggregation, and consolidation through the Web for National Financial's 340 broker/dealers. Norman Malo, president and CEO of the Fidelity Investments clearing firm, said the Fetter deal grew out of National Financial's advisory board…
NASD has warned older Americans about the potential downside of selling their existing life insurance polices for cash in transactions known as life settlements or senior settlements. The transaction involves selling a life insurance policy that's no longer wanted or needed to a third party, usually for more than the policy's cash surrender value and less than its net death benefit. NASD encouraged investors to consider the following factors when deciding whether to sell their life insurance policies: privacy concerns; transaction costs; the financial impact; determining a fair price; and ongoing life insurance needs…
The SEC has authorized improvements to the NASD Code of Arbitration Procedure, including simplifying its language and reorganizing it in a more user-friendly way. The code is now separated into three parts–the Customer Code, the Industry Code, and the Mediation Code–and is organized to follow the sequential order of a typical arbitration. The Mediation Code was approved and became effective on January 30, 2006. The Customer and Industry Codes will become effective in April…
Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation announced a reduction in the fee for using its Networking service, which allows fund companies, broker/dealers, and other distributors to balance their books and records with the same information on customer activity available at the shareholder level. Effective January 2, the fee was reduced 40%, decreasing the cost of using the service to 15 cents for every 100 records from 25 cents/100 records. Networking currently supports more than 82 million customer and omnibus accounts…
