At a recent European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) public hearing on T+1 settlement, market participants expressed confidence that misalignments caused by North America’s transition will be resolved once the European Union (E.U.) adopts a shortened settlement cycle. While North America’s transition to T+1 was largely uneventful, hailed as a success by many, including DTCC… Read More >>
Cboe Clear Europe & ABN Amro Test CBDC as Collateral
Cboe Clear Europe, a pan-European clearinghouse, and ABN Amro Clearing Bank N.V., report that they have been testing the use of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) as collateral, essentially exploring the potential of distributed ledger technology (DLT). In particular, they have been “testing the viability of the solution for margin calls outside the opening… Read More >>
Google Cloud’s Quant Collaboration Has Lessons for Ops
We at FTF and FTF News focus much of our attention on post-trade operations. But every once in a while we take a look at some of the breakthroughs happening in the front office. Such advances ripple through to the middle- and back-office Ops teams. A case in point is the quantitative trading firm Hudson… Read More >>
Gresham & Alveo Merge to Offer More Data Services
Following a complex set of financial maneuvers, data reconciliation vendor Gresham Technologies has merged with Alveo, a market data integration and analytics solutions provider, via a transaction that Alveo’s majority owner private equity firm STG Partners helped make happen, officials say. In fact, before the current merger, STG Partners and Alliance Bidco, a company owned… Read More >>
Can a Proposed Standard Stop SSI Failures?
Standard Settlement Instructions (SSIs) are important for securities transactions because they specify the location for delivery after execution. However, SSIs cause a high rate of failures at the settlement stage, and the Financial Markets Standards Board (FMSB) is taking steps to rectify the situation. The ongoing use of “manual SSI exchanges, which are prone to… Read More >>
Apex Fintech Launches Platform for Building Investment Infrastructures
Apex Fintech Solutions is launching an investment infrastructure platform, dubbed Apex Ascend, that has been designed to help clients improve their capability to “operate efficiently and better navigate risk on a global scale,” officials say. The cloud-native platform offers built-in tools and data to help firms create, integrate, scale, and operate globally and offers key… Read More >>
Bain Capital Buys Envestnet for $4.5 Billion
Private equity giant Bain Capital is acquiring Envestnet, Inc., a provider of integrated technology, intelligent data, and wealth solutions, via a transaction valuing Envestnet at $4.5 billion ($63.15 per share), officials say. The transaction will take Envestnet private. The Envestnet platform is used by wealth management firms, registered investment advisors (RIAs), and broker-dealers. The buyout… Read More >>
The SEC Has Contingencies After Supreme Court Loss
If major media organizations even bothered to cover the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-to-3 decision against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on June 27, the initial takeaway was that the regulatory agency suffered a massive blow to its abilities to take legal action in civil cases, particularly anti-fraud cases. But that might be too dire… Read More >>
EDGAR Now Supports IFRS, Security-Based Swap Taxonomies
The SEC has upgraded the popular public database of financial information and operations of public companies, the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval, or EDGAR, to support more industry-relevant taxonomies. EDGAR Release 24.2, released on July 1, “now supports the 2024 version of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) taxonomy and now accepts the Security-Based… Read More >>
FICC Debuts Risk Tool for U.S. Treasury Clearing
Industry players in U.S. Treasury transaction markets can now access a free, public-facing Value at Risk (VaR) calculator that will help them comply with SEC rules that will expand clearing requirements for them. The DTCC’s Fixed Income Clearing Corp. (FICC) has launched the new tool, accessible via a web browser, which provides “the ability to… Read More >>
