December has always been full of surprises — good and bad — and the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the exchanges company that owns the New York Stock Exchange, has announced a slew of executive surprises this week for NYSE and ICE. In a press release and an accompanying letter from Jeff Sprecher, founder, chairman, and CEO… Read More >>
BNY Mellon Buys Optimal’s Indexing for ‘Pershing X’
Other BNY Mellon Units to Get Direct Indexing Too The Pershing clearing and custody services business of BNY Mellon is acquiring Optimal Asset Management, a direct indexing solutions provider, and will offer Optimal’s capabilities to advisory clients within Pershing, and to institutional and retail clients within BNY Mellon’s Investment Management business. If the acquisition… Read More >>
Crypto to Face New Rules in 2022: Regulators
Heavy-hitter federal regulators say new rules are coming for cryptocurrencies, the new, mostly unregulated financial sector that competes with traditional banks without offering deposit insurance, the banks’ most important protection. And cryptography has been beset by high-profile scandals that have cost some would-be crypto millionaires their entire fortunes. As well, at a time of worsening… Read More >>
Key Groups Push to Start T+1 in 2024
The goalpost for the move by U.S. equities markets from T+2 to the shorter T+1 settlement cycle has shifted from 2023 to the first half of 2024 after an outreach to the industry revealed that more time was needed to revamp and test systems, workflows, and operations to facilitate this fundamental change to securities transaction processing…. Read More >>
North American Firms Could Face CSDR Penalties: Q&A
(Earlier this month, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC), a post-trade market infrastructure systems and services provider, reported that its Exception Manager platform for trade exceptions would include an optional Central Securities Depositories Regulation or CSDR service. The DTCC is also launching a new link between the Exception Manager offering and its Central Trade… Read More >>
Wall Street’s New Cop Jolts Enforcement
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reports that it filed 434 new enforcement actions in fiscal year 2021. The SEC’s whistleblower program was “critical to these efforts and had a record-breaking year,” a commission statement notes. FY 2021 “marked the highest number of awards to both the number of individuals and in dollar amounts awarded,”… Read More >>
JPM Asset Management Taps JPM Securities Services
Following a two-year search, JPMorgan Asset Management (JPMAM) officials report that they will be outsourcing to JPMorgan’s Securities Services division an updated set of global operations that will encompass middle office services, collateral management, and risk analytics. The move means that there will be a definite swing to a more flexible model for services that… Read More >>
Broadridge Dashboard Offers ESG Views of Companies: Q&A
(Post-trade systems, services, and software provider Broadridge Financial Solutions recently launched the Broadridge ESG Performance Dashboard, an effort that is intended to present investors and shareholders with a wide view of companies and their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) ratings, officials say. ESG criteria “are a set of standards for a company’s operations that socially… Read More >>
ACA Group & Foreside Agree to Merge
Genstar to Be Majority Owner of Combined Company Governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) solutions vendors ACA Group and Foreside Financial Group have signed a definitive agreement to combine their two companies, officials say. Private equity firm Genstar Capital, which invested in Foreside earlier this year, will become the majority owner of the combined business… Read More >>
Franklin Templeton Outsources Transfer Agent Unit to FIS
Asset manager Franklin Templeton has launched a partnership with FIS that will allow the software and services provider to take over the management of the firm’s global transfer agent (TA) function, which includes potentially onboarding 1,450 Franklin Templeton employees. To provide continuity in service, Franklin Templeton’s transfer agent workforce across Asia-Pacific, Canada, Europe, and the… Read More >>