Northern Trust to Manage Equity & Bond Trading Westwood Holdings Group, a Dallas, Texas-based investment management boutique and wealth management firm, will be outsourcing portions of its equity and fixed income trading, and middle-office trade settlement support to custodian and service provider Northern Trust, officials say. The firm is using Northern Trust’s services “to optimize… Read More >>
SEC Charges Crypto Fund Manager with Fraud
The SEC has taken legal action to freeze a flagship fund of cryptocurrency fund manager Virgil Capital LLC via the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York, alleging that the firm’s investors are at risk via fraud and related matters. The focus of the asset freeze request is the firm’s cryptocurrency trading… Read More >>
Are You Ready for Digitalized Repo Ops?
(Last month, JPMorgan revealed that it had successfully conducted “a live, blockchain-based intraday repo transaction” between its broker-dealer and banking entity via an internally developed blockchain/distributed ledger technology (DLT) application. The effort was a test of instantaneous settlement and maturity of the transaction in hours rather than days. The news spurred FTF News to reach… Read More >>
Keep Hope Alive for 2021
It’s next to impossible to predict what the major trends in securities operations will be in 2021. The industry is still focused on what the new world will be after the fatal COVID-19 pandemic is defeated by vaccines and new behaviors. We may be in a holding pattern for at least the first six months… Read More >>
ICE Unit Settles Charges of Failed Pricing Compliance
A securities pricing subsidiary of the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has settled with the SEC over charges that it should have done a better job of vetting certain prices that were based on data from single broker market participants. The wholly-owned subsidiary, ICE Data Pricing and Reference Data (PRD), which is also a registered investment adviser,… Read More >>
DTCC Acquires Sapient’s Compliance Reporting Platform
DTCC to Add Sapient’s CMRS to Report Hub Post-trade systems and services vendor DTCC has acquired a platform for compliance management reporting, dubbed the Compliance Management Reporting System (CMRS), from consultancy Publicis Sapient, and will integrate CMRS with a pre- and post-trade reporting solution, the DTCC Report Hub service, officials say. The combined offerings are… Read More >>
Key Regulators Issue USD LIBOR Warning
Authorities: Steer Clear of USD LIBOR Key industry regulators are warning financial services firms not to use U.S. dollar (USD) LIBOR as a reference rate after Dec. 31, 2021 to avoid “consumer protection, litigation, and reputation risks.” The Nov. 30 statement, which underscores the need for firms to move away from the London Inter-bank Offered… Read More >>
BlackRock’s Aladdin Takes On Climate Risk
BlackRock Launches Climate Risk Add-On for Aladdin Asset management giant BlackRock is targeting financial institutions and investors that want to quantify climate risk via their portfolios. To help firms take on climate risk, BlackRock has launched the Aladdin Climate software application that analyzes climate risk and opportunities “at the security level,” and tracks policy changes,… Read More >>
Layoffs Are Key to ABN Amro’s Digital Transformation
Dutch banking giant ABN Amro will begin a two-year staff trimming process that will reduce its global workforce by 15 percent — a key part of an $840 million streamlining said to be essential to its digital transformation, according to an announcement on Nov. 30. Media outlets and financial markets analysts have estimated that the… Read More >>
Mutualized Ops Automation Cuts Costs by 20%: DTCC
Post-trade systems and services provider DTCC is making its case for the cost-cutting value of mutualized, automated securities operations after surveying nine global broker-dealers that use its key offerings. The DTCC defines mutualization as “sharing the cost of utilitarian functions” that involves the adoption of “a no-touch processing workflow,” officials say. “Ultimately, the scale and… Read More >>
