For the sixth year in a row, Financial Technologies Forum (FTF) sponsored the FTF News Technology Innovation Awards competition to help securities industry professionals shine the spotlight on the outstanding companies, individuals and industry groups that have achieved excellence in post-trade operations. The key winners for 2016 are featured in the special Awards Issue… Read More >>
Linedata, Electra Take On the Portfolio Recs Puzzle
Investment management systems vendor Linedata and post-trade provider Electra Information Systems have joined forces to provide data extraction and integration between the Electra Reconciliation platform and Linedata’s Global Hedge Portfolio Manager software in an effort to automate the identification of exceptions. In general, asset managers have had to develop data extracts to conduct reconciliations and… Read More >>
CFTC Approvals Raise Number of SEFs to 21
CFTC Finalizes Registration for GTX, Tera and FTSEF The CFTC has given its stamp of approval to three swap execution facilities (SEFs): the GTX SEF (GTX) of Bedminster, N.J.; TeraExchange, (Tera) of Summit, N.J.; and FTSEF (FTSEF) of Great Neck, N.Y., bringing the number of fully CFTC-registered SEFs to 21. The regulatory action finalizes approval… Read More >>
Politics Can Kill a Move to the Utility Model
Internal political battles at securities firms can prevent them from considering cost-effective utility models for key operations, say officials at financial services consultancy Capco, which just released a global survey of banking executives’ reactions to utilities. Overall, Capco officials say that the survey finds that firms are “failing to take full advantage of the utilities… Read More >>
Q&A: Firms Still in Limbo over T+2 Changes
(Editor’s Note: Matt Rodgers, senior manager at business consultancy Sapient Global Markets, thinks that it’s a little premature to know what IT infrastructure and solution changes will be required for the transition to trading day plus two settlement (T+2). The efforts of the DTCC, the Securities and Financial Market Association (SIFMA) and major industry players… Read More >>
Recs to Face Greater Regulatory Scrutiny in Europe
European regulators are focusing greater attention on data integrity particularly when it comes to the reconciliation of securities operations, and that may give the back office a stronger role in the IT budgeting process, say Maryse Gordon, a senior pre-sales consultant for the UnaVista hosted services business of the London Stock Exchange Group. Speaking at… Read More >>
Tighter Budgets Make Trading Ops Utility Model More Attractive
Cost-cutting and the crush of regulatory compliance are making a utility model for processing and sharing the costs of trade operations, including core post-trade systems, more likely, according to a new study from by Broadridge Financial Solutions. The utility model, which would incorporate reference data, reconciliations, trade expense management, corporate actions, and tax and regulatory… Read More >>
Duco Signs Four Firms for Recs Product
Duco, a London-based provider of hosted reconciliation services, has signed four new customers in the past five weeks, officials say. China Merchants Securities (CMS) is the latest to adopt Duco Cube for its reconciliation and matching needs, signing last Friday, officials say. They are joined by two unnamed North American banks, a Japanese financial institution,… Read More >>
FTF Panel: U.S. Markets Should Move to T+0
A panelist at FTF’s ReCon New York event on Thursday is calling for the U.S. securities industry to move to a T+0 settlement cycle rather than the incremental move to T+2, citing the truism that nothing good happens between trade date and settlement. That’s a phrase heard often from operations managers, and it was heard… Read More >>
‘Step Away from the Excel Spreadsheets’
It’s likely that Julie O’Connor, the chief operating officer (COO) for Johnston Asset Management, doesn’t miss the burden of sorting through the endless cells, rows and add-ins of a gigantic Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to complete the invoicing process for the SEC-registered investment advisor based in Stamford, Conn. “We were running our fee bills out of… Read More >>
