As your industry advocate, the NIBA provides many services which help your business stay in compliance with NFA regulations. “Ask the NFA,” is the way you can ask questions about those regulations and compliance requirements without having to call NFA directly. Just email us at [email protected] and we will get the answers for you. Please keep in mind the purpose of this contact is to keep the lines of communication between the NFA and NIBA members. This month’s questions were selected from those submitted by NIBA members. The answers were supplied by NFA staff. Q: What is the time frame…...

On Tuesday, February 6, the NFA held its annual members meeting. For the umpteenth year in a row, I was the only NFA member attending. I attended in order to present NFA staff members with questions from the NIBA membership – questions which IBs/CTAs might not want to ask the NFA directly. As they always are, NFA staff was very responsive, conducted themselves very professionally and responded to our inquiries. This year, our membership had several questions for NFA staff. Here are two of those questions and the answers. The others will be posted in upcoming newsletters. From an IB…...

Michael Coglianese will be presenting this topic in an online presentation which will be made available to NIBA members.  This effort is being co sponsored by the NIBA and John Lothian.  All IB/CTA/CPO owners or interested parties should tune in as this session will highlight real changes you can make to your firms’ structure to best position yourself for the new tax laws.  Stay tuned for additional information and release dates....

The cryptocurrency asset class is here to stay and growing at warp speed. The stories are real.  Some cryptocurrency traders have turned $100,000 into $1,000,000 in less than a year.  Now those traders are creating cryptocurrency funds so they can trade on a multimillion dollar scale. This article will focus on five things you should know before setting up your crypto fund.  As a disclaimer I am not an attorney and therefore not providing you with legal advice.  If you need a legal advice, our firm can point you in the right direction.  We are a CPA firm that specializes…...

As your industry advocate, the NIBA provides many services which help your business stay in compliance with NFA regulations. “Ask the NFA,” is the way you can ask questions about those regulations and compliance requirements without having to call NFA directly. Just email us at [email protected] and we will get the answers for you. Please keep in mind the purpose of this contact is to keep the lines of communication between the NFA and NIBA members.  This month’s questions were selected from those submitted by NIBA members. The answers were supplied by NFA staff. Q: A colleague recently forwarded an NFA Notice…...

Written by: Mark E. Ruddy, Esq. Maria Fielding   Increase in National Futures Association (“NFA”) Assessment Fee The NFA’s Executive Committee is recommending an increase in the NFA’s assessment fee beginning January 1, 2018. The Executive Committee voted in favor of recommending that the assessment fee increases from $0.01 per side to $0.02 per side for futures and options contracts, bringing the assessment fee back to its amount prior to being reduced in October 2014 to $0.01. The NFA maintains that an increase in the assessment fee is necessary in order to continue operations and maintain reserves properly. The recommended…...

NIBA – The Association for Derivatives Professionals 55 W. Monroe, Ste. 3600 Chicago, IL 60603 (312) 977-0598 www.theniba.com BY ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION Christopher Kirkpatrick, Secretary Commodity Futures Trading Commission 1155 21st Street, NW Washington, DC 20581 September 28, 2017 Re: CFTC Request for Public Input to Make Regulations(s) Simpler, Less Burdensome and Less Costly (Project KISS) Mr. Kirkpatrick: The NIBA appreciates the opportunity to provide suggestions and comments to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC” or “Commission”) as it reviews existing rules and regulations with an eye toward possible reevaluation of certain of them. We support the review, and look forward…...

Compliance Supervisors International Inc. (“CSI”), is excited to welcome John Brand to lead our Chicago Compliance Division. John is an excellent addition to CSI, and we look forward to leveraging his extensive and deep industry knowledge, with the current and ever-changing compliance and regulatory policies to better help our clients.  Mr. Brand’s compliance and examination experience spans across two decades, where he served in numerous compliance roles, most recently as Managing Director of Compliance at the National Futures Association. Mr. Brand also held various compliance and Anti-Money Laundering Compliance positions in the FCM community and for a Derivatives Clearing Organization.…...

As your industry advocate, the NIBA provides many services which help your business stay in compliance with NFA regulations. “Ask the NFA,” is the way you can ask questions about those regulations and compliance requirements without having to call NFA directly. Just email us at [email protected] and we will get the answers for you. Please keep in mind the purpose of this contact is to keep the lines of communication between the NFA and NIBA members.  This month’s questions were selected from those submitted by NIBA members. The answers were supplied by NFA staff. Q: I heard NFA updated the individual application…...

  National Futures Association (“NFA”) Updates Financial Statement Filings The NFA is adding additional questions to independent introducing brokers’ (“IBs’”) financial statement filings beginning with the September 30, 2017 filings. The additional questions do not concern new information being collected by the NFA, but rather information that had previously been collected by way of a follow up from the NFA to an IB after financial statements were submitted. The hope is that the financial statement filing process will be streamlined by asking these questions at the time of submission filings instead of the NFA having to call up the IBs…...