Fintech
SEC Adopts Rule Amendments to Modernize Disclosures of Business, Legal Proceedings, and Risk Factors Under Regulation S-K
Washington, D.C.–(Newsfile Corp. – August 26, 2020) – The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that it voted to adopt amendments to modernize the description of business (Item 101), legal proceedings (Item 103), and risk factor disclosures (Item 105) that registrants are required to make pursuant to Regulation S-K. These disclosure requirements have not undergone significant revisions in over 30 years. The amendments the Commission is adopting today update these items to reflect the many changes in our capital markets and the domestic and global economy in recent decades.
“Today we modernized our public company business disclosure rules for essentially the first time in over 30 years,” said SEC Chairman Jay Clayton. “Building on our time-tested, principles-based disclosure framework, the rules we adopt today are rooted in materiality and seek to elicit information that will allow today’s investors to make more informed investment decisions. I am particularly supportive of the increased focus on human capital disclosures, which for various industries and companies can be an important driver of long-term value. I applaud the staff for their dedication and thoughtful approach to modernizing and improving these rules and adding efficiency and flexibility to our disclosure framework.”
Many of the amendments reflect the Commission’s long-standing commitment to a principles-based, registrant-specific approach to disclosure. These disclosure requirements, while prescriptive in some respects, are rooted in materiality and are designed to facilitate an understanding of each registrant’s business, financial condition, and prospects. The rules are designed for this information to be presented on a basis consistent with the lens that management and the board of directors use to manage and assess the registrant’s performance. The modernization of Items 101, 103, and 105 is intended to elicit improved disclosures, tailored to reflect registrants’ particular circumstances, which are designed will improve disclosures for investors and add efficiencies to the compliance efforts of registrants. The amendments are also intended to improve the readability of disclosure documents, as well as discourage repetition and reduce the disclosure of information that is not material.
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FACT SHEET
Modernization of Regulation S-K Items 101, 103, and 105
Aug. 26, 2020
Background
On Aug. 8, 2019, the Commission proposed amendments to modernize the disclosure requirements in Items 101, 103, and 105 of Regulation S-K. The proposals were part of a comprehensive evaluation of the Commission’s disclosure requirements that was recommended in the staff’s Report on Review of Disclosure Requirements in Regulation S-K (“S-K Study”). The S-K Study was mandated by Section 108 of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (“JOBS Act”). Based on the S-K Study’s recommendation, the staff initiated an evaluation of the information our rules require registrants to disclose, how this information is presented, where this information is disclosed, and how we can better leverage technology as part of these efforts (collectively, the “Disclosure Effectiveness Initiative”). The overall objective of the Disclosure Effectiveness Initiative was to improve our disclosure regime for both investors and registrants.
In developing the proposed amendments, the Commission considered input from comment letters received in response to these disclosure modernization efforts. The Commission also took into account the staff’s experience with Regulation S-K arising from the Division of Corporation Finance’s disclosure review program and changes in the regulatory and business landscape since the adoption of Regulation S-K.
In response to the proposed amendments, we received numerous comment letters, and after considering all of the public comments received, the Commission is adopting the amendments substantially as proposed with certain modifications.
Highlights
The final amendments will, among other things:
- amend Item 101(a) by:
- making it largely principles-based, requiring disclosure of information material to an understanding of the general development of the business;
- replacing the previously prescribed five-year timeframe with a materiality framework; and
- permitting a registrant, in filings made after a registrant’s initial filing, to provide only an update of the general development of the business focused on material developments that have occurred since its most recent full discussion of the development of its business, which will be incorporated by reference;
- amend Item 101(c) by:
- clarifying and expanding its principles-based approach, with a non-exclusive list of disclosure topic examples drawn in part from topics currently contained in Item 101(c);
- including, as a disclosure topic, a description of the registrant’s human capital resources to the extent such disclosures would be material to an understanding of the registrant’s business; and
- refocusing the regulatory compliance disclosure requirement by including as a topic all material government regulations, not just environmental laws;
- amend Item 103 by:
- expressly stating that the required information may be provided by hyperlink or cross-reference to legal proceedings disclosure located elsewhere in the document to avoid duplicative disclosure; and
- implementing a modified disclosure threshold for certain governemental environmental proceedings resulting in monetary sanctions that increases the existing quantitative threshold for disclosure of those proceedings from $100,000 to $300,000, but that also affords a registrant some flexibility by allowing the registrant, at its election, to select a different threshold that it determines is reasonably designed to result in disclosure of material environmental proceedings, provided that the threshold does not exceed the lesser of $1 million or one percent of the current assets of the registrant; and
- amend Item 105 by:
- requiring summary risk factor disclosure of no more than two pages if the risk factor section exceeds 15 pages;
- refining the principles-based approach of Item 105 by requiring disclosure of “material” risk factors; and
- requiring risk factors to be organized under relevant headings in addition to the subcaptions currently required, with any risk factors that may generally apply to an investment in securities disclosed at the end of the risk factor section under a separate caption.
What’s Next?
The amendments will be effective 30 days after publication in the Federal Register.
Modern brands stake on influencer marketing, with 76% of users making a purchase after seeing a product on social media.The cryptocurrency industry is no exception to this trend. However, promoting crypto products through influencer marketing can be particularly challenging. Crypto influencers pose a significant risk to a brand’s reputation and ROI due to rampant scams. Approximately 80% of channels provide fake statistics, including followers counts and engagement metrics. Additionally, this niche is characterized by high CPMs, which can increase the risk of financial loss for brands.
In this article Nadia Bubennnikova, Head of agency Famesters, will explore the most important things to look for in crypto channels to find the perfect match for influencer marketing collaborations.
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Comments
There are several levels related to this point.
LEVEL 1
Analyze approximately 10 of the channel’s latest videos, looking through the comments to ensure they are not purchased from dubious sources. For example, such comments as “Yes sir, great video!”; “Thanks!”; “Love you man!”; “Quality content”, and others most certainly are bot-generated and should be avoided.
Just to compare:
LEVEL 2
Don’t rush to conclude that you’ve discovered the perfect crypto channel just because you’ve come across some logical comments that align with the video’s topic. This may seem controversial, but it’s important to dive deeper. When you encounter a channel with logical comments, ensure that they are unique and not duplicated under the description box. Some creators are smarter than just buying comments from the first link that Google shows you when you search “buy YouTube comments”. They generate topics, provide multiple examples, or upload lists of examples, all produced by AI. You can either manually review the comments or use a script to parse all the YouTube comments into an Excel file. Then, add a formula to highlight any duplicates.
LEVEL 3
It is also a must to check the names of the profiles that leave the comments: most of the bot-generated comments are easy to track: they will all have the usernames made of random symbols and numbers, random first and last name combinations, “Habibi”, etc. No profile pictures on all comments is also a red flag.
LEVEL 4
Another important factor to consider when assessing comment authenticity is the posting date. If all the comments were posted on the same day, it’s likely that the traffic was purchased.
2. Average views number per video
This is indeed one of the key metrics to consider when selecting an influencer for collaboration, regardless of the product type. What specific factors should we focus on?
First & foremost: the views dynamics on the channel. The most desirable type of YouTube channel in terms of views is one that maintains stable viewership across all of its videos. This stability serves as proof of an active and loyal audience genuinely interested in the creator’s content, unlike channels where views vary significantly from one video to another.
Many unauthentic crypto channels not only buy YouTube comments but also invest in increasing video views to create the impression of stability. So, what exactly should we look at in terms of views? Firstly, calculate the average number of views based on the ten latest videos. Then, compare this figure to the views of the most recent videos posted within the past week. If you notice that these new videos have nearly the same number of views as those posted a month or two ago, it’s a clear red flag. Typically, a YouTube channel experiences lower views on new videos, with the number increasing organically each day as the audience engages with the content. If you see a video posted just three days ago already garnering 30k views, matching the total views of older videos, it’s a sign of fraudulent traffic purchased to create the illusion of view stability.
3. Influencer’s channel statistics
The primary statistics of interest are region and demographic split, and sometimes the device types of the viewers.
LEVEL 1
When reviewing the shared statistics, the first step is to request a video screencast instead of a simple screenshot. This is because it takes more time to organically edit a video than a screenshot, making it harder to manipulate the statistics. If the creator refuses, step two (if only screenshots are provided) is to download them and check the file’s properties on your computer. Look for details such as whether it was created with Adobe Photoshop or the color profile, typically Adobe RGB, to determine if the screenshot has been edited.
LEVEL 2
After confirming the authenticity of the stats screenshot, it’s crucial to analyze the data. For instance, if you’re examining a channel conducted in Spanish with all videos filmed in the same language, it would raise concerns to find a significant audience from countries like India or Turkey. This discrepancy, where the audience doesn’t align with regions known for speaking the language, is a red flag.
If we’re considering an English-language crypto channel, it typically suggests an international audience, as English’s global use for quality educational content on niche topics like crypto. However, certain considerations apply. For instance, if an English-speaking channel shows a significant percentage of Polish viewers (15% to 30%) without any mention of the Polish language, it could indicate fake followers and views. However, if the channel’s creator is Polish, occasionally posts videos in Polish alongside English, and receives Polish comments, it’s important not to rush to conclusions.
Example of statistics
Wrapping up
These are the main factors to consider when selecting an influencer to promote your crypto product. Once you’ve launched the campaign, there are also some markers to show which creators did bring the authentic traffic and which used some tools to create the illusion of an active and engaged audience. While this may seem obvious, it’s still worth mentioning. After the video is posted, allow 5-7 days for it to accumulate a basic number of views, then check performance metrics such as views, clicks, click-through rate (CTR), signups, and conversion rate (CR) from clicks to signups.
If you overlooked some red flags when selecting crypto channels for your launch, you might find the following outcomes: channels with high views numbers and high CTRs, demonstrating the real interest of the audience, yet with remarkably low conversion rates. In the worst-case scenario, you might witness thousands of clicks resulting in zero to just a few signups. While this might suggest technical issues in other industries, in crypto campaigns it indicates that the creator engaged in the campaign not only bought fake views and comments but also link clicks. And this happens more often than you may realize.
Summing up, choosing the right crypto creator to promote your product is indeed a tricky job that requires a lot of resources to be put into the search process.
Author
Nadia Bubennikova, Head of agency at Famesters
The BIS, along with seven leading central banks and a cohort of private financial firms, has embarked on an ambitious venture known as Project Agorá.
Named after the Greek word for “marketplace,” this initiative stands at the forefront of exploring the potential of tokenisation to significantly enhance the operational efficiency of the monetary system worldwide.
Central to this pioneering project are the Bank of France (on behalf of the Eurosystem), the Bank of Japan, the Bank of Korea, the Bank of Mexico, the Swiss National Bank, the Bank of England, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. These institutions have joined forces under the banner of Project Agorá, in partnership with an extensive assembly of private financial entities convened by the Institute of International Finance (IIF).
At the heart of Project Agorá is the pursuit of integrating tokenised commercial bank deposits with tokenised wholesale central bank money within a unified, public-private programmable financial platform. By harnessing the advanced capabilities of smart contracts and programmability, the project aspires to unlock new transactional possibilities that were previously infeasible or impractical, thereby fostering novel opportunities that could benefit businesses and consumers alike.
The collaborative effort seeks to address and surmount a variety of structural inefficiencies that currently plague cross-border payments. These challenges include disparate legal, regulatory, and technical standards; varying operating hours and time zones; and the heightened complexity associated with conducting financial integrity checks (such as anti-money laundering and customer verification procedures), which are often redundantly executed across multiple stages of a single transaction due to the involvement of several intermediaries.
As a beacon of experimental and exploratory projects, the BIS Innovation Hub is committed to delivering public goods to the global central banking community through initiatives like Project Agorá. In line with this mission, the BIS will soon issue a call for expressions of interest from private financial institutions eager to contribute to this ground-breaking project. The IIF will facilitate the involvement of private sector participants, extending an invitation to regulated financial institutions representing each of the seven aforementioned currencies to partake in this transformative endeavour.
Source: fintech.globa
The post Central banks and the FinTech sector unite to change global payments space appeared first on HIPTHER Alerts.
TD Bank has inked a multi-year deal with Google Cloud as it looks to streamline the development and deployment of new products and services.
The deal will see the Canadian banking group integrate the vendor’s cloud services into a wider portion of its technology solutions portfolio, a move which TD expects will enable it “to respond quickly to changing customer expectations by rolling out new features, updates, or entirely new financial products at an accelerated pace”.
This marks an expansion of the already established relationship between TD Bank and Google Cloud after the group previously adopted the vendor’s Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) for TD Securities Automated Trading (TDSAT), the Chicago-based subsidiary of its investment banking unit, TD Securities.
TDSAT uses GKE for process automation and quantitative modelling across fixed income markets, resulting in the development of a “data-driven research platform” capable of processing large research workloads in trading.
Dan Bosman, SVP and CIO of TD Securities, claims the infrastructure has so far supported TDSAT with “compute-intensive quantitative analysis” while expanding the subsidiary’s “trading volumes and portfolio size”.
TD’s new partnership with Google Cloud will see the group attempt to replicate the same level of success across its entire portfolio.
Source: fintechfutures.com
The post TD Bank inks multi-year strategic partnership with Google Cloud appeared first on HIPTHER Alerts.
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