(Editor’s note: Almost like a secondary player upstaging the star, the Blockchain technology underpinning the crypto-currency Bitcoin has taken on a life of its own even if people in financial services have no clue about what it is. Simply put, the Blockchain is a public ledger that has been used to keep track of Bitcoin… Read More >>
Hillary Clinton Takes On Wall Street — Or Does She?
As the 2016 race for the presidency heats up, Wall Street and its many sins are back in the spotlight. Politicians on the left are tripping over each other to find the right words to help them get as many votes as possible. Some of those words from Democratic Party candidates for the presidential nomination… Read More >>
Will Democrats Rip Apart Banks via a New Glass-Steagall Act?
The race for the presidential nomination among the Democrats is taking shape as front runner Hillary Clinton is facing challenges on the left from U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, particularly on the issue of ripping apart banks that are deemed “too big to fail.” Sanders and O’Malley, in… Read More >>
ISDA Confronts OTC Trade Reporting Mess
Market participants and regulators are still getting the hang of navigating and policing the newly-minted landscape for over-the-counter derivatives that’s come out of the sweeping post-crisis reforms. So, it makes sense that there are still quite a few wrinkles to iron out, even as new regulatory rules continue to come online. One particular area that’s… Read More >>
Interest Rates, Volatility to Rise in 2015: Greenwich Associates
As part of an ongoing series on post-trade operations predictions for 2015, FTF News has been checking in with industry analysts. Kevin McPartland, the head of research for market structure and technology at Greenwich Associates, compiled a list of 15 predictions for 2015 and he has allowed FTF News to cherry pick from it. At… Read More >>
JPMorgan Targets ‘Too Big To Fail’ CCPs
Do central counterparty clearing houses (CCPs) take seriously enough the suggestion — made by many analysts and market participants — that they might become “too big to fail?” That question has hung in the air for years now, ever since post-crisis regulatory reforms assigned CCPs a key role in derivatives markets. Attempts to provide an… Read More >>
Swaps Margin Rules to Slam Big Sell-Side Firms
New swap margin rules could push more derivatives trading onto clearinghouses and create a host of operational difficulties at big banks, but may leave the buy side relatively unscathed when they go into effect next year, analysts say. Last Wednesday regulators unveiled a draft proposal of the rules, which establish a minimum amount of collateral… Read More >>
New Derivatives Rules to Burden Ops
Josh Brodman must be a little nostalgic for the time—only about a year ago—when the fine print of the clearing and execution reforms for derivatives trading was still being finalized. At the time, he was an operations manager for a multi-strategy, event-driven fund with several billion under management. Life is much different now for Brodman,… Read More >>
Bottom-Line Woes Send Buy Side to the Cloud
A new convergence is underway to make cloud computing more palatable for buy-side firms looking for bottom-line cost savings as they face new derivatives-based demands for more compute power just as profit margins tighten and IT budgets flatten. At the same time, the security, business culture and regulatory barriers that have blocked the cloud are… Read More >>
Time for the Buy Side in the Clouds?
Buy-side firms need to embrace improved cloud computing solutions to get “badly needed computing power” while also helping rein in technology costs, according to consultancy Greenwich Associates. For instance, hedge funds could cut the computing costs of portfolio analysis by 50% if they embrace an enterprise-wide, cloud computing offering, according to the new report “Cloud… Read More >>
