Financial Technologies Forum LLC News Feeds http://www.ftfnews.com/ ConvergEx Group, a leading technology company, today announced that RealTick®, its award-winning execution platform, has recently opened an office in Hong Kong to serve as its Asia-Pacific headquarters. The full service office will provide sales, on-boarding and service support for RealTick's customers throughout the region."Since being acquired by ConvergEx Group in January 2011, our international growth has accelerated.  Based on increasing demand from our new and existing customers, we felt that it was time to make significant investments to serve this growing segment of our business," said Stuart Breslow, chief executive officer of ConvergEx's RealTick.  "The launch of our Asia operations demonstrates our ongoing commitment to expand our global business." "This is a natural progression in our evolution as a global firm and complements the wide range of technologies and services that we currently offer throughout the region," said R.G. Manalac, managing director for ConvergEx in Asia-Pacific. "The initial reaction we have received from customers has been quite positive and we are already looking to open additional satellite offices in the coming year." RealTick is a provider of comprehensive, global, cross-asset class, multi-broker, multi-prime trading, risk and data solutions.  RealTick was recently rated the Best Provider of Execution Management Systems (EMS) by Waters Technology and Best EMS by Buy Side Technology magazines. http://www.ftfnews.com/News-more-4321.html Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ: FISV), a leading global provider of financial services technology solutions, announced today that its ACCEL/Exchange(R) payments network had another record-setting year, processing more than 1.5 billion transactions in 2011, an increase of nearly 29 percent over 2010.  ACCEL/Exchange payments network from Fiserv is one of the fastest-growing payments networks in the industry, supplying the infrastructure for financial institutions to give cardholders around-the-clock access to their demand deposit account funds at ATMs and the point of sale.ACCEL/Exchange also experienced record-setting volume in the fourth quarter and processed more than 151 million transactions in December 2011. Network membership increased by nearly 10 percent in 2011 bringing total membership to more than 3,000 financial institutions."2011 was another year of above-industry growth for the ACCEL/Exchange from Fiserv, which we take as a testament to the reliability and innovative nature of our network," said David Keenan, general manager, Network Solutions, Fiserv. "We continue to enhance the network to make it more valuable to our financial institution members, enabling them to provide their cardholders with secure payments and convenient funds access. In 2012 we have plans to add even more value to our member institutions with the introduction of mobile access and real-time access to funds for person-to-person (P2P) transactions."  Throughout 2011 Fiserv also saw continued growth in its Member Advantage program, an innovative interchange program for members who choose ACCEL/Exchange as their exclusive PIN debit network plus subscribe to at least one additional Fiserv product or service. Members in the program have the opportunity to earn higher interchange rates and reduce overall expenses."More and more institutions are recognizing that the ACCEL/Exchange Member Advantage program is the best way to leverage their debit investment," said Keenan. "With industry-leading financials, program optimization tools, loyalty rewards and integration with the unsurpassed assets of Fiserv, ACCEL/Exchange Member Advantage is the straight-forward way for financial institutions to strengthen the relationships with their customers while maximizing the return on their debit investment in an increasingly complex and competitive environment." http://www.ftfnews.com/News-more-4320.html My paranoia last month may have been justified. I wrote about the Occupy London protesters wanting to camp out near the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and the cyber-attacks between Israeli and Arab hackers as harbingers of more trouble to come. It looks as if not only was I was right but there needs to be a renewed vigilance to fend off what is likely to be a steady flow of terrorists and hackers targeting financial centers, trading venues and financial services firms.The good news is that major counter-terrorism operations have been performing near-miracles. In London yesterday, The Wall Street Journal and others reported that four British men, inspired by al Qaeda, pleaded guilty to charges that they intended to bomb the LSE in 2010. Five more defendants also pleaded guilty to additional terror-related charges. Authorities arrested the nine British citizens in December 2010 after a major counter-terror operation in the UK. Apparently, the defendants also had plans to target Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and the US embassy. Authorities said that by the time the defendants were arrested they had yet to create bombs or establish days and times for the attacks.So, while many of us have been distracted by other pressing matters such as the Great Recession and the recovery, the terrorists haven’t lost their focus. And neither have the hackers.The WSJ also reported yesterday that cyber-attacks shut down the websites of two Brazilian banks—Itaú Unibanco and Banco Bradesco—apparently by the Anti-Security Brazilian Team, which in association with iPiratesGroup, is taking aim at Brazil’s top five banks. They are also targeting airlines, telephone companies, credit card companies, government websites and radio station transmissions. The members of the hacking groups say they are fighting for economic justice and not creating havoc for personal gain. One of the statements proclaims, “Everyone has an honest job! Look, we have plenty of knowledge to carry out frauds … lol, but we’re not thieves!” Well, not yet, anyways.The attacks are a preview of what the hackers are capable of and are meant as a warning of far worse consequences to come. These and other hackings are further confirmation that pressure groups and terrorists can come from all corners.In fact, a study from the University of Maryland via the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) has tracked the ebbs and flows of terrorism in the US from 1970 to 2008. The study found that nearly one-third of all terrorist attacks in that time occurred in five metropolitan US counties: Manhattan (343 attacks); Los Angeles County, Calif. (156 attacks); Miami-Dade County, Fla. (103 attacks); San Francisco County, Calif. (99 attacks) and Washington, D.C. (79 attacks). In total, the study revealed that 65 of 3,143 US counties could be classified as “hot spots,” which are defined by START researchers as counties with a higher than average number of terrorist attacks—more than six from 1970 to 2008.The report, funded in part by the US Department of Homeland Security, has also identified time trends and geographic concentrations in terrorist attacks.“The 1970s were dominated by extreme left-wing terrorist attacks,” said Bianca Bersani, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and co-author of the report with Gary LaFree, director of START. “Far left-wing terrorism in the U.S. is almost entirely limited to the 1970s with few events in the 1980s and virtually no events after that.” Ethno-national/separatist terrorism hit in the 1970s and 1980s while religiously motivated attacks occurred predominantly in the 1980s, according to the study. Extreme right-wing terrorism was concentrated in the 1990s and single issue attacks were dispersed across the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.So, in the second decade of the 21st Century I suspect the current wave of terrorist acts and hackings will come from the right via religious extremists and the left from people in economic desperation.What is more disturbing is that there is very little discussion among those in the media and in the political realm about terrorism—cyber or otherwise. There is also scant exploration of the evils of hacking and cyberpunks. We seem to be experiencing a sad mix of fear, complacency and fatalism that is self-defeating. The only seed of hope is that some firms and branches of government have gotten the message and are vigilant about terrorism and cyber-attacks. But the vigilance has to spread and has to be more than full-body scans at airports.The major mainstream media outlets have got to pay more attention to how the terrorist and hacking threats are evolving. As we’re in the throes of a presidential election, it would be the right time to hash out what more the government and society should be doing to protect not only financial centers and financial services firms but all facets of our world. It would be better than another annoying, content-free story about the Republican horse race for front-runner status. http://www.ftfnews.com/News-more-4319.html IntercontinentalExchange, operator of regulated global futures exchanges, clearing houses and over-the-counter (OTC) markets, reported a 6% decline in futures volume and improved revenue capture for January 2012. ICE's average daily volume (ADV) was 1.49 million contracts compared to 1.58 million contracts in the prior January. Total futures volume in January 2012 was 29.8 million contracts.January 2012 ReviewICE Futures Europe records: Monthly volume and ADV records were established for ICE Heating Oil futures, ICE Dutch TTF Gas futures and ICE Brent options. ICE Natural Gas futures set a monthly ADV record of 35,756 contracts. ICE Brent Crude futures reached a record open interest level of 1,010,088 contracts on January 27. Open interest records were also established for ICE Low Sulphur Gasoil futures, ICE Coal Rotterdam futures and options and European natural gas futures and options contracts. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) certified portfolio margining benefits for clearing participants' proprietary positions at ICE Clear Credit. ICE Futures Canada announced the successful introduction of its new milling wheat futures contract. Open interest in CCFE's contracts began transitioning to ICE's OTC market following the introduction of new forward contracts in the third quarter of 2011. Through January 27, ICE's CDS clearing houses have cleared $27.0 trillion in gross notional value on a cumulative basis across 786,531 transactions. ICE currently lists 337 CDS contracts for clearing. ICE Clear Credit has cleared $15.7 trillion of gross notional value since inception, including $1.3 trillion in single-name CDS, resulting in open interest of $827 billion. ICE Clear Credit offers clearing for 42 indexes and 132 corporate single-name contracts and four Latin American sovereign single-name contracts. ICE Clear Europe has cleared euro 8.3 trillion ($11.4 trillion) of gross notional value since inception, including euro 1.2 trillion ($1.6 trillion) in single-name CDS, resulting in euro 550 billion ($721 billion) of open interest. ICE Clear Europe offers clearing for 38 indexes and 121 single-name contracts. Trading days in January 2012: ICE Futures Europe: 20 ICE Futures U.S.: 20 ICE Futures Canada: 21 Chicago Climate Futures Exchange: 20 http://www.ftfnews.com/News-more-4318.html CME Group, the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today announced that January 2012 volume averaged 11.6 million contracts per day, down 5 percent from January 2010, but up 21 percent from December 2011.  Total volume for January was 232 million contracts, of which 82 percent was traded electronically.Open interest at the end of January 2012 reached 87.1 million contracts, up 11 percent from the end of 2011.  Open interest growth was 11 percent in the month of January 2012 versus 7 percent in the month of January 2011.  January 2012 open interest growth was especially strong in interest rates at 17 percent, foreign exchange (FX) at 14 percent and agricultural commodities at 13 percent.In January 2012, CME Group interest rate volume averaged 5.2 million contracts per day, down 2 percent from January 2011, but up 47 percent sequentially.  Treasury futures volume averaged 1.9 million contracts per day, down 12 percent compared with same period a year ago, but up 33 percent sequentially.  Treasury options volume averaged 309,000 contracts per day, up 13 percent from January 2011, and up 42 percent sequentially.  Eurodollar futures volume averaged 2.1 million contracts per day, down 1 percent from January 2011.  Eurodollar options volume averaged 850,000 contracts per day, up 30 percent from the prior January.CME Group equity index volume averaged 2.2 million contracts per day, down 13 percent from January 2011.  CME Group foreign exchange (FX) volume averaged 744,000 contracts per day, down 21 percent from January last year, but up 3 percent sequentially and reflecting average daily notional value of $96 billion.CME Group energy volume averaged 2.0 million contracts per day, up 1 percent compared with January 2011, and up 43 percent sequentially.  CME Group agricultural commodities volume averaged 1.1 million contracts per day, flat compared with the prior year period, and up 29 percent compared with December 2011.  CME Group metals volume averaged 365,000 contracts per day, down 11 percent compared with the same period last year, but up 36 percent sequentially.Electronic volume averaged 9.5 million contracts per day in January 2012, down 9 percent from January 2011, but up 17 percent sequentially.  Privately negotiated volume increased 14 percent to 208,000 contracts per day, from the prior January.   Average daily volume cleared through CME ClearPort was 582,000 contracts in January 2012, up 27 percent compared with January 2011, and up 48 percent compared with December 2011.  Open outcry volume averaged 1.3 million contracts per day, up 6 percent versus the prior year period, and up 50 percent sequentially. http://www.ftfnews.com/News-more-4317.html CME Group Inc. today reported full-year 2011 results, primarily driven by a 10 percent increase in overall average daily volume.  During the year, the company posted annual average daily volume records across the foreign exchange, agricultural commodities, energy and metals product lines.  Reflecting CME Group's strong cash flow, and consistent with our capital structure guiding principles, CME Group's board of directors raised the first-quarter regular dividend 59 percent, to $2.23 per share, based on a change to our dividend policy, increasing our payout target from 35 percent to 50 percent of prior year's cash earnings.Furthermore, the company declared an additional, annual variable dividend, amounting to $3.00 per share in 2012.  Going forward, this dividend will be considered in the first quarter of each year and will supplement the regular dividend.  The amount of the annual variable dividend will be determined after the end of each year, and the level will increase or decrease from year to year based on operating results, potential M&A activity, and other forms of capital return including regular dividends and share buybacks during the prior year.  Both dividends, totaling $5.23 per share, will be payable on March 26, 2012, to shareholders of record as of March 9, 2012.Full-year 2011 revenues were $3.3 billion and operating income was $2.0 billion.  Full-year net income attributable to CME Group was $1.8 billion and diluted earnings per share were $27.15.  Fourth-quarter revenues were $736 million, which includes a $3 million negative impact related to MF Global's bankruptcy, and operating income was $390 million.  Fourth-quarter net income attributable to CME Group was $746 million and diluted earnings per share were $11.25.Fourth-quarter 2011 results included a $528 million non-cash benefit from a tax adjustment primarily due to a revaluation of our deferred tax liabilities as a result of revisions to our state tax apportionment, and a negative impact of $30 million driven by activities related to MF Global's bankruptcy.  Excluding these items, fourth-quarter diluted EPS would have been $3.55 and full-year diluted EPS would have been $17.04.(1)  "Despite a very challenging environment, 2011 was another productive year for CME Group," said CME Group Executive Chairman Terry Duffy.  "During the year we delivered the highest volume in our history, approaching 3.4 billion contracts traded.  We have performed well navigating through uncertain events such as the Fed's zero interest rate policy, the Eurozone crisis and the final rulemaking for Dodd-Frank.  As market participants adjusted to these factors during the fourth quarter, 2012 has started out strong, with open interest up 11 percent to date.""CME Group's 2011 results and accomplishments demonstrated the sustainable strength and balance of our broad-based business," said CME Chief Executive Officer Craig Donohue.  "During the year, OTC clearing began to achieve some traction, we announced our proposed partnership with McGraw Hill, and we made steady progress with CME Clearing Europe.  We also supplemented our non-transactional revenue by achieving significant customer commitments for co-location services.  Overall, we continue to take decisive long-term strategic actions to expand our core business and continue to successfully advance our globalization strategy.""The increase in our regular dividend and the addition of the variable dividend confirm both our optimism about our ability to drive continued growth and strong cash flows, and also our strong commitment to returning capital to CME Group's shareholders," said Jamie Parisi, CME Chief Financial Officer.  "We believe a strong and growing dividend, and significant dividend yield, will attract shareholders to what we believe is an exceptional business model that is not capital intensive and is highly cash-generative."Fourth-quarter 2011 average daily volume was 11.7 million contracts, down 2 percent compared with the fourth quarter of 2010.  Clearing and transaction fee revenues of $599 million were down 4 percent from $625 million in fourth-quarter 2010.  Market data and information services revenue was $106 million, up 2 percent from $104 million in the same quarter last year.Fourth-quarter total average rate per contract was 81.1 cents, in line with fourth-quarter 2010, and up 4 percent from third-quarter 2011.  The sequential variance can be attributed primarily to a greater proportion of higher-priced commodity product volume to lower-priced financial products, relative to the third quarter of 2011.Fourth-quarter 2011 operating expense was $346 million, including $27 million of expense related to MF Global's bankruptcy.  Fourth-quarter 2011 non-operating expense was $21 million, driven primarily by interest expense and borrowing costs of $29 million, offset by $10 million of investment income.As of December 31, the company had $1.1 billion of cash and marketable securities and $2.1 billion of long-term debt. http://www.ftfnews.com/News-more-4316.html OneChicago, LLC (OCX), an equity finance exchange, today announced that a total of 301,804 security futures contracts were traded in the month of January 2012.January 2012 Highlights:- 262,532 EFPs and blocks were traded. January 2012 EFPs and blocks activity represented more than $1.6 billion in notional value.  - 34% of January 2012 month-end open interest was in OCX.NoDivRisk™ products. The OCX.NoDivRisk product suite is an innovative equity finance tool which removes dividend risk from the security futures. - 100,505 January 2012 futures valued at more than $540 million were taken to delivery, emphasizing the use of single stock futures as an equity finance product.- Open interest stood at 379,950 contracts on the equity finance exchange at the end of January 2012. http://www.ftfnews.com/News-more-4315.html SS&C Technologies, a global provider of investment and financial software-enabled services and software, today announced PD Capital has appointed SS&C Fund Services to provide fund administration services for its PD Star fund.PD Capital Management's investment approach involves complex equity arbitrage strategies, many of which involve short term directional risk. SS&C was able to fast-track the conversion of the fund's books and records from the previous fund administrator in four weeks. SS&C converted and reconciled five months of historical data including one month parallel processing, enabling a seamless transition to daily production including daily profit and loss reporting and full monthly valuations for the fund."SS&C's superior technology, proven conversion track record, and attention to detail in the preparation stages are the primary reasons we chose to migrate our business. We are very impressed with SS&C's delivery of fast and accurate NAV calculations, a significant improvement over our previous administrator," said David Disbrey, Founder and Managing Director, PD Capital. "We look forward to working together with SS&C to continue to provide our investors with superior service.""I am delighted to welcome PD Capital to our sophisticated and prestigious fund administration client base," said David Reid, Senior Vice President and Managing Director, International, SS&C Technologies. "Among the numerous strengths which distinguish SS&C as a fund administrator are our proprietary technology platform, a standardized conversion process, and well-defined controls delivering improved efficiency gains for our clients." http://www.ftfnews.com/News-more-4314.html Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. today announced that Kiwibank, the largest New Zealand-owned bank, has selected Broadridge's PROactiveTM Reconciliation solution for the automation of reconciliations and investigations at an enterprise level across all areas of the bank.  The Broadridge solution will support reconciliation requirements across the bank's cash nostros, point-of-sale transactions, and its products for ATMs, credit cards, foreign exchange and interbank payments.Broadridge's reconciliation solution will enable Kiwibank to reduce operational risk through earlier detection of exceptions and increased efficiency in investigating and resolving outstanding issues.  The solution will deliver transaction reconciliation and exception management at a more detailed level, increasing transparency and reducing the potential for losses or over-payments.PROactive Reconciliation will support Kiwibank's continual growth through the provision of an enterprise reconciliation platform that increases the efficiency and effectiveness of reconciliation processes across the organization.  The bank will also introduce automated workflow for reconciliation discrepancies using the Broadridge tools so that they can be centrally managed and tracked through to resolution."What ultimately led us to Broadridge's PROactive Reconciliation solution were its fixed-price, fast-track implementation, and the ability to manage our total cost of ownership by transferring skills to configure new reconciliations ourselves rather than incurring post-implementation consultancy fees," said Terese Tunnicliffe, GM Payment Services at Kiwibank.  "Other attractive features included the flexibility of the platform, user-friendly screens and configuration tools," continued Ms. Tunnicliffe.Akhter Khan, Head of Asia Pacific, Securities Processing Solutions, International, Broadridge, said, "We are privileged to count Kiwibank among our newest clients in the Asia Pacific region, and we are fully committed to supporting them with the highest standards of service for all of their reconciliation requirements.  They stand to gain significant efficiencies by deploying our extensive workflow automation throughout their enterprise and, through enhanced communications and exception management, across their branches and banking network." http://www.ftfnews.com/News-more-4313.html Fiserv, Inc., global provider of financial services technology solutions, today announced that Astra Bank, headquartered in Scandia, Kan., has completed its implementation of the Precision(R) bank platform alongside an array of Fiserv solutions. The 100 year-old bank, with five locations in Kansas and Nebraska and assets of $184 million, is taking a big step forward into its second century by selecting a suite of innovative solutions from Fiserv. Full integration of these solutions will enable Astra Bank to consolidate customer and account information and to decrease the need to re-enter the same data in multiple systems. The integration between debit card processing services from Fiserv and the Precision bank platform will bring real-time information to frontline employees. The bank also cited the system's scalability, user-friendly functionality and industry-leading product offerings as key factors in its decision to choose Fiserv. As part of a comprehensive suite of Fiserv solutions, the bank selected the Precision bank platform and outsourced account processing services, as well as Branch Source Capture(TM) and Merchant Source Capture(TM) for remote deposits, Business Analytics for enterprise-wide reporting functionality, CheckFree(R) RXP(R) for bill payment, ZashPay(R) for person-to-person payments, Director(TM) for document imaging, Fiserv Clearing Network for image exchange and card services solutions for debit card processing."The integration and innovation offered by Fiserv products and services is unparalleled," said Kyle Campbell, president of Astra Bank. "Prior to selecting Fiserv we were at a competitive disadvantage and internally we were dealing with significant headaches. As our bank continues to grow and adapt to changing economic conditions, Fiserv enables us to offer the services our customers want most."Astra Bank offers a mix of retail and agricultural banking but also supports a smaller number of commercial banking customers. Newly implemented Source Capture Solutions(R) from Fiserv will give Astra Bank competitive advantage by helping the bank to better serve those customers with the convenience of making deposits from remote locations, while enabling the bank to expand its footprint. Astra Bank deployed Merchant Source Capture, which enables corporations and merchants to make online deposits from their offices, with minimal investment in time and equipment. The bank also implemented Branch Source Capture, a solution that streamlines retail deposits at the back counter and will help Astra Bank to help eliminate courier costs and processing delays.Having acquired two financial institutions since 2007, Astra Bank expects to continue to grow through acquisition while expanding organically in its existing markets. As such, the bank expects the Fiserv solutions will scale with continued growth and aid in this objective. "As Astra Bank begins a second century of excellence, Fiserv looks forward to helping the bank continue to grow by building on its reputation for top-notch customer service and sound banking practices," said Teri Carstensen, division president, Bank Solutions, Fiserv. "Together, Fiserv and Astra Bank will deliver innovative, best-in-breed products and services to its customers, while streamlining bank operations and increasing efficiencies. Astra Bank is now strategically positioned for continued success, and we'll be doing all we can to help them get there." http://www.ftfnews.com/News-more-4312.html