Bloomberg Aegon NV, the Dutch insurer that generates most of its business from the US, is scouting for acquisitions and has looked at companies including smaller rival ASR Nederland NV amid consolidation in the domestic market, according to people familiar with the matter. As part of its search for potential targets, The Hague-based Aegon recently made an informal approach to …

Bloomberg A Florida software engineer was sentenced to 16 months in prison for helping run an illegal Bitcoin exchange suspected of laundering money for a group of hackers who targeted financial and publishing firms including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Dow Jones & Co. Yuri Lebedev, 39, helped operate Coin.mx, which tricked banks into processing bitcoin transactions by disguising them …

Bloomberg A potentially explosive battle is brewing over a seldom-discussed aspect of the looming MiFID II laws, which will force traders of any European asset class to hand over personal identification such as passport numbers to every venue they trade on. The massive data-collection exercise will drag in tens of thousands of investors and traders, who some trading venues say …