On January 28, 2021, OFAC issued General License No. 1A and new FAQs 878 and 879 providing relief relating to an entity whose name closely matches, but does not exactly match, the name of a Communist Chinese military company.

The series will be multiple panels for FIF Members that will address the implementation considerations of the 898 page Rule. The kickoff panel later today at 4PM ET will focus on the Rule Overview and will be presented by Wayne Aaron of the Vedder Price law firm in a conversation with Matt Billings of Two Sigma and Tom Jordan, Chair of the FIF Advisory Committee.

Topics in the series include: The Data, Governance & Pricing, Competing Consolidators, Self-Aggregators, Transition and Dates, Retail/Institutional and Buy-Side considerations. Committed speakers to date include representatives from Cboe, Exegy, Georgetown McDonough Business School, IEX, RBC Capital Markets, and Refinitiv.

Last chance to register for today’s Webinar. Please register here.

FIF Front Office Committee. On January 26 at 11am ET, Ari Burstein, President of Capital Markets Strategies, and Greg Mesack, Government Affairs Consultant at Gray Robinson, will present to the Front Office Committee on the recent and upcoming changes in Congress and the SEC and how that could impact broker-dealers, exchanges and other industry participants.

FIF Data and Technology Working Group. On January 27 at 10am ET, Jason Murphy from Exegy will discuss the impact of Tesla joining the S&P 500. In addition to this spotlight presentation, the group will cover the monthly Market Data Capacity Reports, summarized exchange and SIP technical notices and updates, and recent/upcoming regulations that impact market data.

To participate in these spotlight presentations, you must be a participant of the relevant Committee or Working Group. To sign-up for a Committee or Working Group, please log on to your FIF account (fif.com), click Profile in the top right-hand corner and check-off any new Distribution List that you want to join. Please send a note to fifinfo@fif.com with any questions.

On January 19,  FIF submitted responses to FINRA CAT relating to the order receipt and acceptance process. On January 20 FIF submitted comments to FINRA CAT relating to the CAIS Customer and Account Types proposed by the Plan Participants and separately submitted new and open items to FINRA CAT relating to CAIS. On January 22, FIF submitted additional comments and questions to FINRA CAT based on issues raised by FIF Members.

On December 23, 2020, FINRA issued a request for comment on Enhancements to TRACE Reporting for U.S. Treasury Securities. The proposed changes could require significant changes to trade execution and reporting systems for U.S. Treasuries as well as trading and reporting workflow changes. On January 12 and 19 FIF held calls with the FIF TRACE Working Group to discuss the rule proposal in anticipation of submitting a comment letter. The next Working Group call is scheduled for January 26 to review a first draft of the comment letter.