Phil Davis

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is willing to provide technical assistance to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Labor Department in the drafting of a fiduciary rule to guide financial advice, said Robert Colby, FINRA's chief legal officer. FINRA "would love to see a best-interest standard applied that was similarly applied across the broker-dealer world," Colby said. ThinkAdvisor (free registration) (20 Oct.)

Tokyo's stocks surged and the yen weakened after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe scored a commanding victory in national elections. The outcome was widely viewed as a sign that Japan will stick with its loose monetary policy in an effort to drive inflation up to 2%. Bloomberg (free registration) (23 Oct.)

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision released a report showing that the US and Japan are lagging the EU and other jurisdictions in meeting the bank capital standards outlined in Basel III. The committee assessed compliance with nine standards, which were supposed to have already been adopted. MLex (subscription required) (19 Oct.)