Banks and brokers can meet MAR investment recommendation requirements with one smart solution
Insights
Insights
The obligations imposed by the 2016 Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) may seem an onerous new burden, yet Singletrack’s MAR investment recommendations module is proving to be an easily implemented and comprehensive answer for sell-side firms.
In essence, MAR demands total transparency in all aspects of investment recommendation. Market abuse is defined by MAR as ‘a concept that encompasses unlawful behaviour’, which includes such issues as insider dealing, unlawful disclosure of inside information and market manipulation.
Therefore MAR requires all persons who produce or disseminate investment recommendations to objectively present information, and effectively disclose interests or conflicts of interest.
Singletrack’s MAR module holds a recommendations database which seamlessly integrates with the Singletrack platform to record new recommendations, at the start of the day or as client activities are logged. Within every recommendation, the module captures the following information:
In accordance with MAR guidelines, additional key data can be captured at the time of dissemination – to include investment recommendation, analyst recommendation, set recommendation and market price (at the time of dissemination).
When recommendations are made over the phone or in a meeting, the data can be captured by Singletrack Call Manager or in an activity logging sidebar. Users can view a list of all their recommendations, and also view or amend recommendations already associated with a client activity.
Clients share this view – be it through recommendation history displayed on an investor-facing web page, or via daily extracts displayed at close of business. A link to the history can be embedded in any client communication.
Banks and brokers implementing the Singletrack MAR module are demonstrating a clear commitment to compliance. It indicates to the regulator that they are meeting MAR’s core requirements, having demonstrably taken several steps towards compliance, and have a framework in place to embrace further obligations as the details emerge.
Singletrack was founded in London’s financial centre in 2009 by a former JPMorgan CTO who saw the potential in applying on-demand technology and advanced analytics to sell-side customer engagement and research distribution. Today the company supplies a range of capital markets CRM, client engagement and research monetisation solutions backed by a proven best practice methodology. The company’s products are used by investment banks, institutional brokers and independent research providers on four continents.