NIBA - Celebrating 35 Years

NIBA Journal

Insights, analysis, and updates from the National Introducing Brokers Association

Marketing
7 min read

Interview with John C. Jensen | President, Membership Chairman of NIBA

John C. Jensen President, Membership Chairman of National Introducing Brokers Association Interview Date: January, 2011 Interviewed by John F. Gallwas - Founder of Striker Securities John C. Jensen (NFA 229230) is President of the National Introducing Brokers Association ("NIBA"), a Chicago based trade association. The NIBA provides a format for the members of the commodity futures industry to address mutual areas of interest, as well as to provide an information platform for the public. Members include Introducing Brokers ("IB"), Commodity Trading Advisors ("CTA"), Futures Commission Merchants ("FCM"), futures exchanges, and industry regulators. Mr. Jensen is also President and Founder of Heritage West Financial, Inc., a registered IB located in San Diego, California. John Gallwas: The focus of this interview is to highlight the IB members of the NIBA and the various services these organizations provide to the futures customer. Futures regulators define the IB as "a firm or individual that...

By NIBARead article
5 min read

President Bush, Refco &“The Chihuahua”

It’s not overtly obvious, but these seemingly unrelated topics actually do have a connection. Let me explain. President Bush was at the Union League Club in Chicago last month promoting the release of his memoir Decision Points. According to Crown Publishers, Decision Points will offer “gripping, never-before-heard detail” on such historic events as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Anyway, that got me thinking; thinking about all the horrible life-altering events of that day and the days that followed. It also got me thinking about how those events were the catalyst for some very important regulatory changes in the financial services industry. Anti-Money Laundering (AML) rules and regulations were put into place in April of 2002 as a direct result of the International Money Laundering Abatement and Anti-Terrorist Financing Act of 2001, which was signed into law barely a month after the attacks. Business Continuity Procedures (BCP) a/k/a Disaster Recovery Procedures...

By NIBARead article
Marketing
5 min read

Interview with Bucky Isaacson: Co-founder CTA EXPO

Bucky Isaacson President, Futures Funding Consultants Inc. (NFA 1974) Program(s) Developed: Co-Chairman CTA Expo Chicago, New York Interview Date: December, 2010 Interviewed by John F. Gallwas - Founder of Striker Securities Bucky Isaacson became one of the early pioneers of managed futures when he joined a group in 1969 that developed a computerized trading system. From that point forward he has focused on developing managed futures business, particularly in Asia, and becoming a prominent leader in the managed futures field. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the National Futures Association and currently serves on the Board of directors of the National Introducing Brokers Association. He is President of Futures Funding Consultants with headquarters, located 30 miles south of San Francisco, in Woodside, California John Gallwas: According to BarclayHedge, Commodity Trading Advisors (CTA) had $233.4B under management at the end of the 2ndQ of 2010, up...

By NIBARead article
Marketing
2 min read

NIBA Conference Session: Generating Website Traffic [VIDEO]

Website Traffic Generation and Leveraging Your NIBA Membership A LIVE Interactive Discussion | Shane Stiles, President of gate39media How can you generate more traffic to your brokerage website? How do you increase your online visibility? And how can the NIBA help? Answers to these questions and how IBs and CTAs can benefit from the current and future versions of the NIBA website. It was a pleasure to speak at the NIBA Conference last week, the conference was a huge success. For anyone who was unable to attend, the video and slides from my presentation Website Traffic Generation and Leveraging Your NIBA Membership can be viewed below. Website Traffic Generation and Leveraging Your NIBA Membership Presentation starts at 13:00 minute mark --> --> NIBA Chicago 2010 - Internet Visibility for Introducing Brokers and CTAs - Futures Marketing View more presentations from gate39media. Please feel free to contact me with any questions...

By NIBARead article
Marketing
1 min read

NIBA Session: Corn's Market Demand [VIDEO]

Corn's Market Demand: Where Do We Go From Here? Darin Newsom, Senior Analyst, DTN At the 2010 NIBA Conference, recognized analyst Darin Newsom of DTN  provided attendees with a brief commentary on one of the hottest commodities--corn. We are pleased to present the slides and video of his presentation. Corn's Demand Market Presentation slides (PDF) Video ends at 12:30 mark. We apologize for the technical difficulties at the beginning of this presentation. --> --> Please feel free to contact Darin at: 800.485.4000 ext.3679 or darin.newsom@telventdtn.com Twitter: @DarinNewsom www.telventdtn.com

By NIBARead article
2 min read

CFTC Roundtable: Ownership and Control Report

In my role as Chairman of NIBA, I was invited to represent our organization at the CFTC Staff Roundtable held in Washington, DC on September 16. The topic was OCR (Ownership and Control Report), a proposed regulation scheduled to take effect as early as January 2012. Also present were representatives from several U.S. exchanges, CTAs and a working group associated with FIA. Among other things, this regulation will require all defined "reporting entities," a/k/a "root data sources," to provide increased account ownership and control information, not only at the time of opening, but on a continuing weekly basis in a report filed directly with the CFTC. If this regulation is approved in its proposed form, all IBs, regardless of the size of the office, type of business transacted or guarantee will be designated by the CFTC as "root data sources." IBs would not be considered small businesses which might otherwise...

By NIBARead article
4 min read

NFA Offers Guidance on CFTC's Final Forex Regulations

Notice to Members I-10-21 October 13, 2010 NFA offers guidance on CFTC's final forex regulations The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's (CFTC) final Forex regulations are effective on October 18, 2010. NFA staff has received a number of inquiries from Members seeking further guidance and clarification on certain requirements. Based on further consultation with CFTC staff on Friday, October 8th, this Notice provides additional guidance on the following areas: Risk Disclosure Statement Required by CFTC Regulation 5.5 CFTC Regulation 5.5 prohibits FCMs, RFEDs, and in the case of an introduced account, IBs from opening a retail Forex account until the FCM, RFED or IB has provided the customer with the required disclosure statement, along with the most recent quarterly customer account performance information, and obtained a signed acknowledgement of receipt of the disclosure document from the customer. Firms are not required to provide this disclosure statement to, or obtain the disclosure...

By NIBARead article
2 min read

LEGAL CORNER: Do You Still Know-Your-Customers? You Better.

On January 3, 2011, amendments will become effective to NFA Compliance Rule 2-30, commonly referred to as the Know-Your-Customer Rule. (See also NFA website and Notice to Members I -10-15 dated July 28, 2010). Hopefully, everyone is well versed with the current rule which requires NFA Members to obtain information about their customers and provide appropriate risk disclosures. Note, however, that the forthcoming amendments will broaden your responsibilities. The changes to the Rule can be summarized as follows: The Rule will soon apply not just to individual customers, but ALL non-ECP customers; FCM Members must annually request that active customers notify them of any material changes to the information previously provided by the customer. (Like a negative consent letter, if the customer does not respond, the information on file is deemed verified. If, though, the customer provides material changes to the information, any FCM, IB or CTA Member that solicits/communicates...

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Member Announcements
1 min read

NIBA Chairman Melinda Schramm to Participate in CFTC Proposed Account Ownership and Control Report

Melinda Schramm, Chairman of the Board and found of the NIBA has been invited to participate in a CFTC public meeting on September 16 in Washington, DC.  The purpose of this meeting isto discuss the proposed Account Ownership and Control Report. This proposed regulation identifies IBs and CTAs as business entities under the definitions in the proposals which may have increased responsibilities for identifying the real owners/controls of trading accounts. Details of this proposal can be found in the Federal Register at pg. 41775. If you would like to comment, please email Melinda Schramm at melinda@futuresrep.com. A summary of the meeting will appear in the NIBA Newsletter and at the NIBA Meeting, November 2 in Chicago.

By NIBARead article
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