Winter/Spring 2013 This was FTF News’ very first completely digital magazine. For this edition, we made some major predictions for 2013. We correctly forecast a revival in reconciliation systems. On other fronts, we chronicled a new push for enterprise-wide control of operations data, surveillance strategies for social media interactions and the operational demands of cleared… Read More >>
Getting Ready for Newly Minted SEFs
The CFTC has today published the final rules for swap execution facilities (SEFs) with the Federal Register, giving swaps dealers and other firms two months to register with the CFTC for approval of their venues for cleared and executed over-the-counter transactions.Most of the new rules will become effective August 5, 2013 and the official compliance… Read More >>
Bloomberg Takes CFTC to Court
Bloomberg is challenging the CFTC in court over a new rule for margining that the media giant says favors futures over swaps. The legal move is seen as an effort to thwart a potential market shift away from swaps transacted via forthcoming swap execution facilities (SEFs) and toward established futures exchanges.Bloomberg, which is laying the… Read More >>
FTF News Prediction #3: The Industry Faces A Rocky Road to the New World of OTC Trading
(Editor’s Note: This story is running in our first-ever FTF News Winter/Spring digital issue that features our top five predictions on industry trends that are likely to be the focus for many securities operations and technology professionals throughout 2013. We will be running our prediction stories from the digital issue throughout the Spring. The digital… Read More >>
A Standard for Collateral Management Settlement?
SWIFT, the DTCC and AcadiaSoft, maker of a margin messaging platform, are exploring ways via preliminary tests with clients to standardize an infrastructure for bilateral and tri-party collateral management settlement. But some industry observers want independent industry groups without a profit motive to lead these much-needed efforts to end manual processes and reduce systemic and… Read More >>
Compliance and the Promised Land
One of the legacies of 2012—a tumultuous year by anyone’s standards—is that financial product innovation has been put on the shelf by the constant flow of new regulations (with more to come) and a weak recovery that has squeezed profit margins. Most firms have been quickly shifting their energies and budgets to compliance. In fact, as… Read More >>
Q&A: CFTC
CFTC commissioner Bart Chilton says that no matter who wins the U.S. presidency on Tuesday, Nov. 6, the momentum for over-the-counter (OTC) execution, clearing and transparency reforms for the derivatives market is practically unstoppable. He adds that there would be little political support to return to the unregulated OTC world that triggered the Great Recession.GOP… Read More >>
State Street and OTC Processing
State Street is spreading the word about its end-to-end package for processing over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives—which includes middle and back office services—just as OTC reforms are likely to cause buy-side firms to choose between a best of breed or an integrated suite approach for the operational tapestry to come for executed and cleared OTC instruments. As… Read More >>
Your Financial IT Spend in 2012
Taken together, two key surveys provide a snapshot of how you and your fellow market participants are allocating your financial technology dollars in 2012. Not surprisingly, the regulatory overhaul of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives trading is the single biggest budget driver. It’s also no shock that the buy side is still dragging its feet on the… Read More >>
A Thousand Points of Light on the OTC Front
To paraphrase a former president, there are “a thousand points of light” when it comes to activity on the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives execution, clearing and valuation fronts. Variety abounds as State Street touts a platform that will compete against sell-side offerings and major sell-side players such as BNP Paribas gear up to ready offerings for… Read More >>
