It was a sense of déjà vu at TSAM (The Summit for Asset Management) 2016 in London yesterday (15 March), as the industry still says it is facing a “tsunami of regulation”. The event brought around 300 delegates, vendors and speakers to London’s Lancaster Hotel. All there to network, and discuss trends and issues in […]
Fiserv has added new advisor portfolio management and trading technology to its Unified Wealth Platform. The single platform is used for portfolio management, trading, accounting and reporting for managed accounts. The company says over 5,000 advisors and users supporting rep as portfolio manager (RPM) or rep as advisor (RPA) programmes have migrated to the “enhanced” […]
London-based Calastone, the global funds transaction network, has launched Data Services, a market intelligence solution for fund managers. Calastone says that MiFID II, the European regulatory framework designed to “improve the transparency and oversight of financial markets”, is moving responsibility to understand the distribution chain from distributors and platform providers to fund managers. Rob Swan, […]
Trading platform provider Fidessa has reported a growth in revenue in 2015 up 7%, rising to £295.5 million up from £275 million in 2014, despite the reduction and closure of many sell-side trading operations over the last 12 months. The firm notes that the closure of the Jefferies Group’s Bache futures unit and Standard Chartered […]
Temenos’ earnings have risen by 23% for the full year (FY) 2015 on the back of 52% growth in total software licensing. Along with FY 2015, the vendor reported good results for the fourth quarter of 2015 – its IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) revenue was $168.4 million, up from $133.1 million in Q4 2014. […]
The Linux Foundation, a non-profit organisation geared to promoting open source technology has announced 30 members from across the finance and technology industries have joined its new Hyperledger Project. Hyperledger is an open source project intended to advance blockchain digital technology for recording and verifying transactions. The founding members of the initiative represent a diverse […]
A common approach to the rules governing central counterparties (CCPs), the key infrastructure for reducing counterparty risk in derivatives trading, have been agreed between Europe and the US. The European Commission (EC) intends to adopt an equivalence decision with respect to Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) requirements for US CCPs which will allow the European Securities […]
Goldman Sachs has launched a new FICC Systematic Market Making (SMM) unit. SMM will consolidate its e-trading assets and capabilities across FICC. The move was reported in an internal memo as reflecting changes in market structure and client needs. The memo, signed by several executives including group chief information officer Martin Chavez, says, “Our ability to […]
The European Commission has put markets out of their suffering by finally confirming a one year extension to the entry into application of the revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, or MiFID II. The extension has been made to overcome technical implementation challenges faced by both regulators and market participants. The new deadline is 3 […]
FIS, the financial services technology provider which acquired SunGard at the end of 2015, has predicted organic revenue growth of between 3% and 4% in 2016. It reports that 2015 revenue grew by 3% over 2014 to reach US$6.6 billion. “The resilience of our business model characterised by highly recurring revenues and operational efficiencies allowed us […]
Markit has acquired systems integration software developed by JP Morgan. The provider of financial information services will make the software available to buy- and sell-side institutions seeking to integrate with major systems used in the syndicated loan market, including agent servicing platforms and Markit’s trade settlement services. Facilitating systems integration is an important step toward […]
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published its 2016 supervisory priorities for credit rating agencies (CRAs) and trade repositories (TRs). The regulatory authority reports seeing a number of changes in the CRA and TR industries during 2015, with new applicants for registration in both sectors, and current authorised entities seeking to develop their […]
Investment manager AllianceBernstein is working with Interactive Data, to help evaluate its trade execution quality and perform transaction cost analysis (TCA). The work will be done across various mutual funds and separately managed portfolios using Interactive Data’s Best Execution (Best Ex) service. The service leverages its Continuous Evaluated Fixed-Income Pricing to run TCA for fixed-income […]
Fixed income market operator Tradeweb has launched an electronic over-the-counter (OTC) marketplace for US-listed exchange traded funds (ETFs). The firm says the platform tackles some of the challenges inherent in institutional OTC trading such as pre-trade price transparency, operational efficiency and access to institutional-size liquidity. Tradeweb clients will be able to use the platform to […]
Central securities depositary Euroclear and consultancy Oliver Wyman have issued a report on the use of blockchain, the distributed ledger technology that underpins Bitcoin transactions, in capital markets. The firms arguing that major existing players will have to work with newcomers to create a framework that operates between firms and under regulatory obligations. Blockchain and […]
The US division of RBC Wealth Management is working with BlackRock-owned digital wealth management provider FutureAdvisor on a pilot program for select clients in the United States. Called RBC Investor Gateway, the new service will provide RBC Wealth Management financial advisors with the opportunity to reach a broader range of clients through FutureAdvisor’s digital advice platform. […]
Morgan Stanley has appointed Naureen Hassan as chief digital officer for Wealth Management, a new position in which she will lead the strategy and marketing of digital tools and platforms serving the firm’s 16,000 financial advisors and 3.5 million clients. Naureen Hassan served most recently as executive vice president, Investment Services Segments and Platforms at […]
Malaysia headquartered RHB Investment Bank (RHB) has implemented Fidessa as its trading platform across Asia. The system, managed by Fidessa throughout the region, provides algorithmic trading across all member markets, ‘intelligent’ indications of interest (IOIs) and a centralised order management system (OMS) with integrated middle-office to support RHB’s regional business. The ability to on-board a […]
The largest vendors in the trader voice market are now in a similar position to IBM in the late 1990s: their solutions are proprietary, expensive to maintain, and lacking true open integration …
BNP Paribas Corporate and Institutional Banking (CIB) has announced that it has appointed Rudi Collin as Head of Digital Transformation for CIB. Previously Collin was head of Electronic Business and Markets for the Global Markets business and prior to this, was chief operating officer for the fixed income division of the bank. In his new role, […]
Market operator Nasdaq has seen revenues from its technology sales increase, with its Technology Solutions division, which makes up 27% of total net revenues reach $146 million in the fourth quarter of 2015, up from $4 million from the fourth quarter of 2014. The exchange’s Market Technology unit, which accounts for 13% of total net revenues, […]
Global investment and private bank, UBS, has signed an agreement to expand its use of the AppDynamics Application Intelligence Platform across its critical applications to supports its digital transformation initiatives. “Using AppDynamics we have been able to improve the speed at which we identified and remediated application issues, as well as avoid incidents in the […]
Financial software provider GATElab, part of London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), has launched an ultra-low-latency service risk gateway to the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE). The solution is designed to enables users to send orders to the NSE equity derivatives segment in less than 30 microseconds, if all the pre-trade risk checks are met. […]
In a new whitepaper, the US post-trade infrastructure provider Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), has voiced its belief that the financial services industry “has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine and modernise its infrastructure” by employing blockchain in a coordinated manner. Blockchain is the transaction model used to transfer ownership of crypto-currency bitcoin. It was developed […]
Cognitive computing specialist CustomerMatrix, a co-founder of forum Cognitive Computing Consortium, has closed US$10.5 million in Series-B funding. The investment, one in a series of investments in artificial intelligence-like technologies in 2016, was led by HSBC, with participation from Aster Capital, and existing investors Newfund and True Global Ventures. CustomerMatrix, which offers a predictive engine called […]
If 2015 was all about how the financial sector continued its post 2008 crisis transformation, 2016 looks set to promise even more developments in the same vein across the EMEA region. The ongoing change continues to be remarkable in its depth and scope impacting financial institutions and technology firms like Wolters Kluwer Financial Services who exist to enable banks and others to navigate risk and regulatory complexity
Buy-side block trading venue Liquidnet has released a set of EMEA trading algorithms, which it says will help market participants to find liquidity ahead of the European Commission’s upcoming MiFID II legislation, which introduces important changes for dark pools.
The European Union’s initiative to create a Capital Markets Union in Europe is currently stuck in a quagmire of political debate. That shouldn’t discourage politicians and regulators from taking the necessary steps as soon as possible, according to a new report by the International Capital Markets Association.
On 12 January new EU regulations on securities financing will take effect. Local regulators including France’s AMF have warned financial institutions to be ready for the new rules, which require greater transparency.
An “Implementation Playbook” detailing the timeline, milestones and dependencies involved in migrating the US equities, fixed income and unit trust markets to a two-day settlement cycle has been published by the T+2 Industry Steering Committee.
2015 has been a year of extensive discussion about what role blockchain can play in making processes in the financial services industry more efficient. It has also been a year where both banks and start-ups have been testing whether distributed ledger technology can adequately replace costly legacy systems and improve securities processing, writes Brian Collings. […]
There is an uncanny similarity between Prime Minster David Cameron’s emphasis of moving from a “low wage, high tax, high welfare society to a higher wage, lower tax, and lower welfare society” and a shifting focus among the asset management community.
It is a well-known fact that banks have two types of technology: Cold War-era IBM mainframes running Cobol-based batch programmes and Evil Genius HFT systems. The mundane truth is that any financial services operation will have a range of hardware and software systems of different vintages and spend a lot of time and money living with the consequences.
Either the distributed ledger is the greatest revolution in financial services for a generation, or it will make little difference to anything, according to the strongly divided opinions expressed by speakers at the Mondo Visione Exchange Forum in London last week.
Deutsche Börse strengthened its links with mainland China this week with the establishment of a partnership with the Shanghai Stock Exchange and China Financial Futures Exchange to create new marketplace for the trading of renminbi-denominated offshore products under the new brand of the China Europe International Exchange.
The London Stock Exchange Group is planning to launch a new interest rate derivatives venture called CurveGlobal, which initially aims to offer short term interest rate futures. Backed by several banks including Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Citi, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Société Générale, the new venture is part of the exchange’s long-held ambition to gain traction in the derivatives markets, which have historically been dominated by rivals in continental Europe.
SETL, the institutional payment and settlement infrastructure based on blockchain technology, claims to have which has broken the 1 billion transactions-per-day capacity barrier for blockchain movements in a test network.
T2S, Europe’s harmonised settlement platform, is live. With a series of migration waves scheduled up until full live operation in July 2017, the next few years are likely to be characterised by intense activity as market participants finalise their strategies …
London Stock Exchange and The Depository Trust & Clearing are partnering to provide clients with a connection to the LSE’s UnaVista Approved Reporting Mechanism. The service will allow DTCC clients to comply with the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation through their current connection from DTCC’s Global Trade Repository.
A new online market for buying and selling financial research has gone live in Europe. Focused on providing buy-side firms with more transparency, the new RSRCHXexchange is based in the cloud and is aimed at helping institutions comply with MiFID II research unbundling requirements.
