The impending switch to T+1 settlement in North America scheduled for May 28, 2024, has raised concerns in Europe, where market participants report a lack of international testing. Although not officially moving to T+1 just yet, Europe launched its T+1 taskforce led by the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) in March last year. In early conversations… Read More >>
Davy Capital Markets Deploys Torstone Platform
Dublin-based brokerage Davy Capital Markets has gone live with the Torstone Post Trade Platform for middle- and back-office processing to bolster the Davy Group division’s operational efficiency and regulatory compliance, officials say. The Software as a Service (SaaS) platform is from Torstone Technology, a post-trade securities and derivatives processing provider, based in London. “This successful… Read More >>
Ops Woes & Revenues Surge for Securities Lending
A key report finds that securities lending revenues surged last year and so did operational workloads, which makes the case for more automated reconciliation systems that process transactions in real-time, industry expert Roy Zimmerhansl tells FTF News. In 2023, the global securities finance industry set a record with $10.7 billion in revenue for lenders, according to… Read More >>
T+1 Testing: Concerns Emerge Amid Progress
In the sprint toward the T+1 transition to shorter settlement in May 2024, the official line from the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC) is that testing is proceeding smoothly. Behind the scenes, there are concerns regarding end-to-end testing, buy-side participation, and a dearth of operational testing. Val Wotton, managing director and general manager of… Read More >>
Buy Side Faces Big Risks via T+1 for FX
The push for shorter settlement cycles — trading day plus one, or T+1 — could pose major settlement and operational risks for buy-side participants in foreign exchange (FX) markets, according to guidance from the Foreign Exchange Professionals Association (FXPA), based in Washington, D.C. “The introduction of T+1 is not intended to increase FX settlement risk…. Read More >>
Asset Owners Struggle to Move Beyond Spreadsheets
Pension funds, public funds, sovereign wealth funds (SWF), superannuation funds, endowments, and life insurance companies want to move away from spreadsheets and internally developed solutions used for portfolio management and asset allocation but IT complexities coupled with a shortage of expertise are thwarting their attempts to complete their digital transformations. This is according to the… Read More >>
Open Source Helps Wall Street Innovate Faster
(Gabriele Columbro, executive director for the Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS), spoke to FTF News about a variety of subjects during the Open Source in Finance Forum (OSFF) sponsored by FINOS and held in New York City last week. Columbro focused on the Common Cloud Controls (CCC) effort to formulate consistent controls for cloud computing… Read More >>
Open Source Projects Hit Their Stride on Wall Street
The open source movement for financial services firms on Wall Street and beyond is hitting its stride, says the Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS), which reports there is widespread adoption of open source software, standards, and best practices. And more open source projects are going into production, FINOS says. For instance, Morgan Stanley and Wellington… Read More >>
T+1 Will Create a Complex Choreography for Ops
When the North American securities industry starts settling trades the day after they’re executed in May 2024, it will be the culmination of a process dating back at least 30 years. Shortly after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) cut the trade settlement cycle in 1993 to the third business day following trade execution (T+3)… Read More >>
SIFMA Wants SEC to Drop PDA Ban & Other News
SIFMA: SEC Rule Puts Too Many Limits on Firms Securities industry trade association SIFMA and its Asset Management Group (AMG) are strongly urging the SEC to abandon proposed rules that would end or nullify the use of predictive data analytics (PDA) and PDA-like technologies by broker-dealers and registered investment advisors (RIAs). In August, the SEC… Read More >>
