Goldman's JOBS Act and Mary Schapiro's New Gig

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

A Goldman Specialty: Today was a morning of scattered financial coverage: the only story to be covered by more than one outlet is a Securities and Exchange Commission filing revealing that Goldman Sachs will launch a specialty finance company. The vehicle will use Goldman and investor money to purchase the high-risk debt of unrated midsized US companies, but don't call that prop trading – it's a business development corporation! And under the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012, it qualifies as an "emerging growth company" which doesn't need to comply with a full slate of financial reporting rules. Wall Street Journal, Financial Times

Wall Street Journal

Former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro is going to work for Promontory Financial Group, the regulatory consulting firm known for hiring a huge swath of the banking industry's overseers. "In my case, there's no revolving door…I won't ever be going back to government," the 57-year-old Ms. Schapiro said in an interview" which she arguably misconstrues the concept of the revolving door.

MasterCard would like ATM operators to upgrade their security from magnetic stripes to chip based systems. And it plans to hold any ATP operator who doesn't comply responsible for fraudulent transactions.

Financial Times

If you cap it, they will leave: Foreign banks in London are considering shifting some of their business to Dubai in order to sidestep European Union bonus caps. JPMorgan is among the banks considering "allowances" which would cover bankers' cost of living.

Monday was the last day that UK banks were allowed to hire bankers with untested ethics. No, really, from today on the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment will require all brokers and capital markets traders to pass an ethics test. It's a response to the LIBOR rate rigging scandal, and it just gets funnier from here: It's test is online, deals with such things as "awkward requests for corporate hospitality," and has been successfully passed by 99% of the people who have taken it.

New York Times

17 years after Smith Barney got itself in trouble with a "boom boom room" and a culture that tolerated groping, sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuits on Wall Street are way down. That could be the product of better culture, or it could be the product of mandatory arbitration clauses.

Sallie Krawcheck, one of the most prominent (and currently unemployed) female executives on Wall Street, declares in an interview that the financial industry deserves a "declining letter grade" for its treatment of women. Gender disparities might have progressed a bit from the bad old days – "A Wall Street firm rescinded an offer they had given me because they found out I had a baby at home. Yes, that really happened" – but have stagnated since the financial crisis.