Guest Contributor: John Jay, Senior Analyst, Aite Group The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is coming to the rescue of the investment community; it is considering leveling civil fraud charges against credit rating agencies (CRAs) — in particular Standard & Poor’s (S&P) and Moody’s — in relation to their roles in facilitating the 2008 and 2009
Compliance
Good Risk Management = Good Business Management
Guest Contributor: Todd Cooper, Vice President and General Manager of Enterprise Risk Compliance, Wolters Kluwer Financial Services The financial services industry is definitely at a crossroads when it comes to compliance and risk management. One road leads to growth, but requires taking calculated business risks in order to achieve success. The other path involves avoiding
Derivatives
A Derivatives Delay? What to Do for the Next 15 Months
Guest Contributor: Tony Scianna, deputy head of strategy, SunGard Last week we read that U.S. House Republicans voted to delay new derivatives rules by 15 months. Before we go into what this means for the derivatives industry, let’s take a look at how long 15 months really is: * 5 seasons will pass * We’ll
Clearing and Settlement
A Truly Canadian Solution?
Guest Contributor: Steven Grob, Director Group Strategy, Fidessa The merger mania in the exchange space took another twist last week when a consortium of Canada’s largest banks and pension funds put forward an alternative offer for TMX in an attempt to scupper the LSE Group’s own merger proposals with the Canadian exchange. There’s a clue
Financial Technology
Operational Trading Technology Trends in 2011
Guest Contributor: Martin Hakker, EVP of Marketing, Fidessa and Managing Director, Fidessa Canada Corporation Technology investment is on the rise this year as firms look to capitalize on the new look trading environment. Despite many companies postponing infrastructure projects during the downturn, sophisticated tools with adequate flexibility are required to manage the raft of new
Financial Technology
A Battle Royal: Broker vs. Independent – The importance of 3rd Party Pricing Examined
Guest Contributor: Dario Cintioli, Products Director, StatPro The debate between referencing broker pricing or independent pricing has been raging among asset managers in recent years. Broker pricing is often arrived at through the averaging of assets, which can cause a biased valuation. On the other hand, pricing technologies haven’t kept up with the pace of
Derivatives
Proposed Derivatives Rules: Regulators Going Too Far?
Guest Contributor: John Jay, Senior Analyst, Aite Group The name of the game is derivatives regulation, and financial regulators are asking end users to ante up. While pursuing risk management activities, non-financial firms may be subjected to posting higher collateral requirements with their financial counterparties (i.e., banks) than are currently necessary. In part, these firms
Buy-Side
All Roads Lead to the Smart Router
Guest Contributor: Renée Colyer, CEO, Forefactor As if it wasn’t complicated enough before – now, because of the OPR (Order Protection Rule) in Canada, there are two types of smart order routers (venue and broker offered) that the buyside needs to understand. On top of that, the use of algorithms has prompted much confusion about
Buy-Side
Fragmentation v Consolidation
Guest Contributor: Steve Grob, Fidessa Seems like equity and other capital marketplaces are going through the ying and yang of fragmentation and consolidation. Just as we hear about another merger, we read about another new venue going live or more regulation encouraging competition. This provides market participants with a problem, especially in terms of understanding
Buy-Side
Exploring Public & Private Clouds
(Guest Contributor: Brian McCallion, global performance architect at AIG.) Cloud computing has essentially been private from the beginning. Google, for one, demonstrates that the world’s most successful search engine runs not on an IBM Power, Sun Enterprise, or other massively powerful machine engineered for business by the go-to vendors for computer solutions. More in keeping
