In April, US post-trade utility the DTCC called for the US settlement cycle to be moved to T+2, to bring it into line with what’s happening in the rest of the world, which is converging on T+2 settlement cycles – at different speeds.
Tullett Prebon has launched an aggregated swap data repositories data feed for the interest rate swaps market, aiming to increase price transparency in accordance with the Dodd-Frank Act.
Despite promises of change heralded by the European Commission’s upcoming MiFID II, the cost of market data in Europe is still far too high and transparency remains a serious problem, according to senior financial industry executives. Yet the arrival of the Market Model Typology standard earlier this year may provide a catalyst for change.
The outsourcing of middle and back office functions by banks and brokers is now the norm, with nearly all firms outsourcing at least part of their functions to specialist providers such as custodian banks.
A new generation of trading venues is competing their way into the European securities markets with plans to make trading more efficient. But will they bring benefit to banks and investors?
As the European Parliament adopted MiFID II/MiFIR on 15 April, the financial services industry was left wondering what exactly the new transparency regime is going to mean. Despite a curiously low EC estimate of compliance costs, at between €512 and €732 million, it is clear that MiFID II will have a large impact on the tens of thousands of firms and counterparties that will now fall under its scope.
Shifting settlement cycles, the rise of big data, global regulation and increasing demand for post-trade services are creating both challenges and opportunities that global exchanges would do well to face wisely, according to Lars Ottersgard, head of market technology and Eva Saidac, head of business development market technology at Nasdaq OMX.
Canadian ‘challenger’ exchange Aequitas, which plans to favour long-term investors by discouraging HFT, has chosen a trading engine and several other tools from MillenniumIT, the Sri Lanka-based technology company owned by the London stock Exchange.
Collateral management as it is currently known will no longer exist within a few years as increased regulatory demands, rising levels of automation and growth of industry tools to optimise collateral transform the industry, according to a new survey and report by Sapient Global Markets.
As Russia’s revitalised Moscow Exchange begins to command increased attention from global investment banks and hedge funds, a new direct market access service says it can unlock trading features that may not previously have been available to many international investors.
Pre-trade risk and post-trade processing specialist Traiana has launched a new version of its CreditLink tool for credit derivatives, which it says will help buy-side firms to trade on swap execution facilities.
Citi has launched a new set of trading features and transaction cost analysis tools on its Citi Futures and Options Execution platform, which it says will help clients to gain clarity from their futures clearing merchants.
The Athens Stock Exchange has chosen a new surveillance system that it says will help it cope with new European financial regulations, including MiFID II and EMIR.
Sourcing the right collateral to cover global exposures has risen up the list of priorities for financial institutions in Asia in the past 12 months as concerns mount over a possible collateral shortfall, according to a poll conducted by the Singapore Exchange and Clearstream at the Global Securities Financing Conference Asia 2014 in Singapore.
Nasdaq OMX has launched a new business intelligence service called MiQ, which it says will help its regional exchange, clearinghouse and CSD customers to better understand liquidity, market movements, performance and business opportunities.
ICAP has launched a swap execution facility in the UK, as part of a push to dominate both the European and the US OTC derivatives markets as they are brought under new regulation.
South Africa’s Johannesburg Stock Exchange has begun a massive overhaul of its clearing and trading systems, which will see its siloed clearing platforms replaced by a single engine from vendor Cinnober and its derivatives market shifted onto the London Stock Exchange’s MilleniumExchange platform.
The purpose of the European Central Bank’s T2S project is ill-defined and taking so long to deliver that it is being pushed aside by other projects according to speakers at the Swift Business Forum in London.
Nearly three months after the European Commission’s 12 February deadline for trade reporting, market participants are still not ready to report their derivative trades and serious problems remain with understanding the rules.
Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange has gone live on a new trading engine provided by US exchange group Nasdaq OMX. The upgrade project provides the Middle Eastern exchange a trading platform that will allow it to trade new asset classes and further its rivalry against Dubai and other regional exchanges.
US clearing body the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation is pushing a move to shorten the settlement cycle for the US markets to T+2, claiming support from industry bodies and firms including JP Morgan.
Citi has launched an electronic block pricing tool via the Bloomberg App Portal, marking the first time a major tier one broker has ever used the Portal to deploy an application around the world.
China’s Hong Kong and Shanghai stock exchanges are poised to build a major new link that will open up mainland China’s capital markets to foreign investors and vice versa.
Global regulatory pressure and the shift to real-time processing are causing banks and major financial institutions to rethink how they handle reconciliation, according to a new report by financial research house Aite.
Broker ICAP will use high-frequency trading infrastructure from specialist Perseus Telecom as it seeks to expand its coverage across Brazil and Latin America. ICAP is already active in the region, where it connects to São Paulo and Mexico City. The Perseus LiquidPath service provides connectivity, hosting, consulting, and real time monitoring, and includes HFT services […]
The European Commission’s MiFID II legislation has produced a disappointing outcome for those hoping for a consolidated tape of post-trade data, while exchanges continue to bear the brunt of participants’ anger over the price of market data.
One of the central characters featured in Michael Lewis’ controversial book Flash Boys, has added fuel to the fire of debate over high frequency trading by claiming that in a market with less HFT, average order sizes would get larger and long-term investors would benefit.
New EU regulations on market making and dark pools could be damaging investor choice and forcing participants to make decisions that are not in their best interests.
When the requirement brought about by the German high frequency trading act to tag algorithms comes into force this month, market participants may well feel hamstrung by the complexity of the regime – and some might wonder whether this requirement goes one step too far …
Trading firms are still struggling with the Dodd-Frank requirement for certain swaps to be traded on registered Swap Execution Facilities. According to a survey conducted by trading communications vendor IPC Systems, 60% of survey respondents said the industry as a whole was behind on meeting the deadlines on SEF trading, though only 39% said their […]
Consolidation of market infrastructure in Europe will continue, as firms choose post-trade service providers that meet their needs in terms of cost-effectiveness or value-added services. However, some of the real cost issues in Europe are still to be addressed.
Despite the deep controversy created by Michael Lewis’ expose of HFT Flash Boys, global equity markets are not broken, according to a senior capital markets panel at Trade Tech Paris 2014.
FX trading service EBS has launched Watch EBS, a new mobile app that is designed to show users the global spot FX market in as close to real time as possible.
What is the latest technological snag affecting high-speed trading performance? In a word, jitter – a major risk, particularly when carrying out arbitrage.
Bangladesh’s Dhaka Stock Exchange is to install a new trading engine from Nasdaq OMX, which it says will help to realise its plans for regional and global expansion.
European securities regulator ESMA has published a discussion paper asking for public feedback on the technical standards that should be used for CSDs, including registration, settlement discipline, confirmation rules, acceptance or rejection of terms, as well as access to CSDs by other CSDs and market participants.
The number of central clearing counterparties is likely to rise in the near future as new entrants put Latin America, Africa and Australia on the map for OTC derivatives clearing, but with more regulatory intervention expected and unpredictable customer flows, the new venues face an uncertain future
Four Middle Eastern exchanges – Amman, Beirut, Tunis and Muscat – are to migrate to Euronext’s Universal Trading Platform, replacing the older NSC trading engine they are currently using.
Fixed income is a bit like the tortoise of Aesop’s fables, while equities is unquestionably the rambunctious hare. While equities finished the race towards an agency trading model many years ago, fixed income is just plodding onto the starting lines now. But a little outsourcing may provide the rocket boost the industry needs to push ahead, according to Carl James, managing director of dealing services UK at BNP Paribas.
Post-trade services institutions Clearstream, BNP Paribas Securities Services, Intesa Sanpaolo and BBVA have formed a tie-up in Europe, which they say is aimed at better asset servicing n Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain under the ECB’s forthcoming T2S project.
