What Regulators Are Doing to Protect Clients
As painful as back-to-back system failures were for clients, employees, and brokers of both MF Global and PFGBEST, some long-term good might come of it. For instance, as mentioned, in the aftermath of these events, the National Futures Association (NFA) has been provided electronic access to the bank accounts of FCMs, enabling frequent verification of customer segregated funds balances. A proposed insurance fund discussed within the CFTC also would provide deposit insurance to commodity traders on up to $250,000 of the account balance. This insurance fund would be similar to the banking system’s FDIC deposit insurance and would eliminate the risk of unforeseen events such as bank insolvency or a brokerage failure to comply with segregation rules. As this book was going to print, deposit insurance for futures traders was a discussion rather than a reality, but I predict it will eventually be implemented.