In July, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA – the financial regulatory body in the United Kingdom) issued a paper titled “Considerations for firms thinking of using third-party technology (off-the-shelf) banking solutions” (the Considerations). The Considerations contain about five pages of checklist “Areas of interest” and related notes, which are stated…
Sourcing Speak
BYOD: No Such Thing as a Free Lunch
It seems intuitive that, by and large, employees prefer to use their own mobile devices, carrying only a single device for personal and work purposes, and having choice over the device to be used (please don’t take away my iPhone). There has also been a hypothesis that there could be…
FCA warns firms on use of social media to promote financial products
The UK financial services regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), has launched a guidance consultation in order to clarify and confirm its approach to the supervision of financial promotions in social media, including the use of character-limited forms (Examples of character-limited formats are Twitter (which limits tweets to 120 characters)…
The EU’s Right to be Forgotten: Overly Burdensome?
In May earlier this year, the European Union’s top court held in favor of an individual who requested that Google remove the search results associated with his name. In this particular case, a Spanish citizen requested that Google Spain remove an auction notice of his repossessed home from its search…
UK telecoms regulator issues call for input on Internet of Things
Ofcom has published a call for input, entitled “Promoting investment and innovation in the Internet of Things“, regarding issues that might affect the development of the emerging Internet of Things (IoT) sector in the United Kingdom. Ofcom is the UK’s independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industry.…
EU adopts new regulation on cross-border electronic identification and e-signatures
The General Affairs Council, on 23 July 2013, adopted a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the Internal Market. Until the new regulation, the E-Signatures Directive (1999/93/EC) provided the only EU rules relating to e-signatures and said…
OECD calls for increased focus on Outsourcing, IT and Supplier Risk
At a recent conference, the Twelfth Annual Corporate Accountability Conference, 12 June 2014, Cercle National Des Armées, Paris, Pierre Poret, Counsellor, Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs at the The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, told the audience, referring to the OECD’s Risk Management and Corporate Governance report, that…
FCA Chief announces Project Innovate: Helping Firms Meet the Technological and Regulatory Challenge
The head of the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, Chief Executive Martin Wheatley, used a speech at Bloomberg, London given on 3 June 2014 to promote the FCA’s Project Innovate (the drafted text of Martin Wheatley’s speech can be read at http://www.fca.org.uk/news/making-innovation-work). The FCA is the regulatory body that, following reforms…
The UDAAP Trap: How Financial Institutions can Avoid Penalties when Using Third Party Services
In Part 1, we noted that financial institutions could find themselves potentially liable for committing an alleged Unfair, Deceptive, or Abusive Act or Practice (UDAAP) as a result of the actions of certain types of external service providers, particularly those that interface directly with customers. In this Part 2, we…
The Internet of Things–Avoid Getting Eaten by the Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
With the number of (internet) connected devices rapidly surpassing the number of internet people (actually, all people whether or not connected), we take this opportunity to explore some of the legal complexity brought about by all of this connectivity. First, some background: Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group predicts 25 Billion…