The latest compliance news: regulatory developments, punishments, guidance, permissions and new product and service offerings.

CISI
The Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment has developed an assessment module with Qatar - a digital, educational project on the subject of Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism control (AML/CFT).

The organisation has worked on the project with the Qatar Financial Markets Authority, the Qatari capital markets regulator. The entities have cooperated since 2007 when an educational and a QFMA licensing programme was set up to boost qualification standards in the Qatar financial services market.

The project’s launch sees Qatar as the first country in the Middle East to implement a countrywide, digital, AML/CFT assessment, the parties said. A digital learning assessment has been built in English and Arabic for professionals working within the Qatar capital market. The successful completion of the e-learning module will be well recognised in the QFMA’s licensing process.

The assessment, which will be available for public and concerned professionals, can be read and accessed on a mainstream mobile, tablet or laptop.

SEC
The Securities and Exchange Commission's acting chair, Allison Herren Lee, has authorised senior officers in the regulator's Division of Enforcement to approve the issuance of Formal Orders of Investigation.

This will empower senior officers to exercise the delegated authority of the commission to authorise staff to subpoena documents and take sworn testimony. This delegation of authority will enable investigative staff to act more swiftly to detect and stop frauds in progress, preserve assets and protect vulnerable investors, the Securities and Exchange Commission said.

In doing so the chair has returned an old power to the division’s experienced senior officers, who discharged it prudently in the past. She told reporters that it "helps to ensure that investigative staff can work effectively to protect investors in an era when the pace of fraud – like the pace of markets themselves – is ever more rapid."