The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reports that it has settled with New York-based credit-rating agency Morningstar Credit Ratings, which it charged with violating a long-standing conflict-of-interest rule designed to separate a firm’s credit ratings and analysis from its sales and marketing. Morningstar Credit Ratings, a subsidiary of Morningstar, Inc., neither admits nor denies the… Read More >>
TORA Expands Outsourced Trading Team
TORA Adds Two New York-Based Traders A provider of outsourced trading systems, TORA, maker of a cloud-based order and execution management system (O/EMS), reports the addition of two traders to its outsourced trading team: Mark Mazor and Joe Zonenshine. Mazor has more than 15 years of experience as a trader, working as a global execution… Read More >>
Firms Need Collaboration to Keep Up: Q&A
(In the past, some financial services firms have been known to follow the mantra of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” notes Mark Bolton, head of international sales for Gresham Technologies. Yet the financial technology landscape has been changing fast and firms will have to keep up or risk having “solutions that are unable… Read More >>
NYSE Trading Floor to Reopen May 26
NYSE President Announces Floor Reopening via WSJ The open outcry trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) will partially reemerge “slowly and carefully” on May 26, according to Stacey Cunningham, president of the NYSE, who made the announcement via an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, published May 14 The return of… Read More >>
SS&C Buys Innovest Systems for $120 Million
Acquisition Adds to SS&C’s Wares for Trust Companies Securities systems and services provider SS&C Technologies recently signed a definitive agreement to acquire wealth management technology vendor Innovest Systems, based in New York City, for a total of $120 million in cash and stock, officials say. SS&C officials say that this strategic acquisition is intended to… Read More >>
CAT Helps Sell Side Boost Regulatory Ops: Q&A
(The Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) was in the headlines last month as the SEC revised the CAT reporting timeline for broker-dealers due to the complications caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The new milestones for CAT reporting in 2020 are: June 22: initial equities reporting for large broker-dealers and small broker-dealers that report to FINRA’s Order… Read More >>
SEC & Exchanges Clash Over Market Data Order
U.S. equities exchanges are pushing back on the SEC’s sweeping order directing them and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) to improve the governance structure for public, consolidated equity market data and the distribution of trade and quote data from trading venues. The order is intended to change the balance of power among trading venues… Read More >>
Northern Trust’s Client Portal Gets a Cloud Makeover
Online Report Center Will Become a Cloud Service Northern Trust is relaunching a client-facing portal, the Online Report Center, as a cloud-based service with a redesigned user interface, officials say. The revamped service “is currently in its beta phase with a select group of clients. The full release for all clients will be available later… Read More >>
DoJ Gives Back $378 Million to Madoff Victims
Some day, perhaps, Malaysian sovereign-fund alleged fraudster Jho Low, who has escaped prosecution by fleeing to China, will be played in the inevitable biopic by Jet Li or Chow Yun Fat. But until then Bernie Madoff will remain Wall Street’s King of All Media. In fact, Bernard L. Madoff was so a major a media… Read More >>
Firm Launches Trading System Despite Pandemic
An Australian specialist fund manager, Atlas Infrastructure, went live with Indata’s Architect AI OMS and portfolio management solution this month despite the disruptions cause by the COVID-19 pandemic, and with the vendor’s help, completed a deployment remotely. The travel restrictions caused by the pandemic meant that Indata worked with Atlas “completely on a remote basis… Read More >>
