In other FinTech news, TrueEX goes to court, Cordium expands, and IHS Markit launches a MiFID II platform.
Chilean CSD to Receive Services via Nasdaq Financial Framework
Nasdaq will be providing post-trade offerings to Chile’s central securities depository (CSD), Depósito Central de Valores (DCV), which it will use to standardize and unify operations, messaging and the data infrastructure, officials say.
The new infrastructure capabilities will become available via the Nasdaq Financial Framework.
The agreement with DCV will require Nasdaq to deliver:
- Trade and instruction management, settlement, custody, corporate event management and registry capabilities;
- Full coverage for all types of securities and multi-currencies (including the Unidad de Fomento (UF) unit of account such as inflation indexed non-deliverable currency);
- Support for settlement with optimization algorithms and potentially facilities to securities lending and borrowing accounting;
- And straight through processing based on global standards and market practices.
“We are very satisfied with our thorough, year-long vendor partnership process in selecting the Nasdaq platform, which will replace the core system of the DCV,” says Fernando Yáñez, CEO of DCV, in a prepared statement. “We believe with the implementation of this new system, we will have more opportunities for growth and diversification in our current services, as well as strengthening our day-to-day operations.”
A private company, DCV is the only CSD in Chile, and was established in March 1993 to provide settlement and custody services for many instruments such as stocks and mutual fund quotas, bank bonds, certificates of deposit, mortgage bonds, public debts, corporate debts, debentures and Treasury bonds.
Nasdaq offers trading, clearing, exchange technology, listing, information and public company services.
TrueEX Sues IHS Markit
TrueEX is suing to preserve its relationship with IHS Markit because of a dispute over the latter’s role in transporting transactions to clearinghouses, swap data repositories (SDRs,) gateways and other destinations, says Sunil Hirani, CEO and co-founder of TrueEX.
In a letter to customers and shareholders, Hirani explains why TrueEX took “the extraordinary step of seeking the protection from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in order to preserve our interests as well as those of our buy-side and bank clients in the derivatives market.”
The TrueEX infrastructure enables firms to “directly transmit transaction information to clearing houses, SDRs, gateways and other destinations,” Hirani says. “When parties execute a transaction on TrueEX, we provide the execution, matching, direct clearing, direct reporting as well as STP ‘drop copy’ connectivity to the ‘middleware’ provider MarkitSERV (Markit),” he adds.
“Despite operating in this manner for several years, Markit recently informed us Markit is no longer willing to accept a ‘drop copy’ only message, if it originates from TrueEX,” Hirani says. “We believe this action is unilateral and only being applied to TrueEX. … What I have surmised from my conversations with Markit, is they would like us to interact with them in a manner that most closely resembles the way voice broker IDB firms interact with them for voice trades — meaning the transaction would be executed on TrueEX (FIX or UI) and then Markit exclusively would perform the matching, clearing and SDR messaging life cycle events.”
This insertion would position Markit in the middle of “all of our activities in order to process, clear and report transactions, thereby creating additional workflow steps, potentially slower response times, additional software and connectivity changes and higher costs,” Hirani says.
Officials at IHS Markit decline to comment.
Cordium Expands Offerings to Serve Broker-Dealers & Advisers
Cordium, a governance, risk and compliance services vendor, has expanded compliance services for U.S. and foreign broker-dealers and investment advisers via the launch of a new regulatory hosting solution in the United States.
The new offering complements Cordium’s existing compliance offerings that guide firms through the SEC’s registration process and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s membership system, officials say. “The hosted regulatory platform will also allow Cordium clients to take advantage of ‘chaperone’ services for foreign broker-dealers in accordance with SEC Rule 15a-6, assisting non-U.S. broker-dealers in gaining access to major U.S. institutional investors.”
The expansion will help Cordium support financial services clients who need to start marketing “without the need for SEC registration or FINRA membership, especially where this activity does not justify the cost and effort involved in registration and membership, thereby reducing the operational and regulatory risk,” officials add.
Cordium has offices in London, New York, Boston, San Francisco, Malta and Hong Kong, officials say.
IHS Markit Launches MiFID II Solution
IHS Markit, an information, analytics and solutions vendor, has launched the Outreach360 platform, available on Counterparty Manager as a way to address specific MiFID II regulatory rules, officials say.
The new platform covers “the need to manage and share documentation as well as address regulatory outreach and repapering between counterparties,” officials say. “The platform also supports outreach for KYC (Know Your Customer), tax and global regulatory data including due diligence questionnaires.”
The Outreach360 system provides “a single, standardized way to streamline bilateral communications and efficiently manage counterparty outreach campaigns,” officials say. “It enables firms to centralize information by creating, sending and receiving notifications in one place. Users can also track the progress of their outreach efforts with real-time status updates on a customizable dashboard.”
The platform also offers a full audit history on any information exchanged, including legal contracts, terms of business repapering and due diligence questionnaires, officials say. The IHS Markit Outreach360 platform “leverages the existing network of information within Counterparty Manager, which serves over 9,000 corporates and buy-side firms and over 100 banks.”
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