Our FinTech roundup includes news from BNP Paribas Securities Services; SGX & BidFX; Hearsay Systems; and Credit Suisse & ICE.
Pandemic Delays Launch of New ASX System
The Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) has set its new go-live date of April 2022 for the blockchain-based system that will replace its incumbent clearing and settlement, the Clearing House Electronic Subregister System (CHESS), officials say.
The new launch date is 12 months beyond the original launch date, which has been delayed because of the multiple complications caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Since announcing its intention to replace the CHESS system in 2016, ASX has worked with a broad community of stakeholders to progress the project. This has involved continuous interaction on functionality, technical requirements and operational readiness across the market,” according to ASX officials. “With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear that a number of factors, including the pandemic itself, created a need to revise the implementation timetable.”
The ASX began its latest review of the project’s progress in March 2020, with formal consultation beginning last month. “The consultation is open for four weeks with responses due by 28 July 2020. The paper can be found here https://bit.ly/2VEPTV0
ASX will confirm the go-live date as soon as possible after assessing the consultation feedback.
Despite the delays, ASX reports that “the CHESS replacement application and the distributed ledger have been successfully deployed to several ASX technology environments across multiple data centers … A seventh software drop has been deployed on schedule into the customer development environment (CDE), which represents 89 percent of the core clearing and settlement functionality used by customers. Thirty-four organizations have connected to the CDE, including software providers, brokers and share registries.”
New Head of Americas for BNP Paribas Securities Services
Dennis Bon
Global custodian BNP Paribas Securities Services (BNPPSS) has appointed Dennis Bon as the new head of its Americas region, starting September 1, 2020. Bon was promoted from his position as head of depositary and fiduciary Services at BNPPSS based in Paris.
Bon replaces Claudine Gallagher, who has been appointed chief conduct and controls officer for Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB) Americas and BNP Paribas USA, officials add.
Bon joined BNPPSS in 2018 from JPMorgan’s CIB division, where he had served for 17 years in several senior executive positions in London and New York, officials say. He will be based in New York City and will report to Alessandro Gioffreda, head of territory management at BNPPSS.
“The Americas is a key growth region for BNP Paribas Securities Services, where the bank serves both local and international clients,” according to BNPPSS officials. For his new role, Bon will drive the bank’s growth in North and Latin America and develop its service capabilities in the region. Over the past decade, BNPPSS has launched local custody in the United States, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Mexico, where operations recently launched.
BNPPSS is a wholly owned subsidiary of the BNP Paribas Group, and has $10.6 trillion in assets under custody, officials say. The custodian and securities services provider offers multiple asset post-trade and asset servicing solutions for buy- and sell-side market participants, corporates, and issuers.
Singapore Exchange to Completely Acquire BidFX
The Singapore Exchange (SGX), which characterizes itself as “Asia’s most international multi-asset exchange and largest FX derivatives marketplace,” reports that it intends to acquire “the remaining 80 percent … stake in BidFX from its other shareholder(s) for a cash consideration … of approximately US$128 million — a move that would expand SGX’s reach beyond FX futures into the global FX over-the-counter (OTC) market.”
SGX points out that it “first acquired a 20 percent stake in BidFX in March 2019, with the aim of bringing together FX futures with OTC markets. The synergies between SGX and BidFX, coupled with the opportunity to support international FX participants from pre-trade data and analytics, trade execution to post-trade clearing, propelled SGX to purchase the remaining stake.”
SGX expects the transaction to be completed in July 2020. BidFX, previously a subsidiary of TradingScreen, was established in January 2017 and is a cloud-based foreign exchange (FX) trading platform for institutional investors, per SGX.
SGX also notes that, according to the “audited financial statements of BidFX for the financial year ended 31 December 2019, the net tangible asset value of BidFX is £8.5million and the net book value of BidFX is £18.2 million.”
Compliance Vet Joins Hearsay Systems
Iain Duke-Richardet
Silicon Valley-based Hearsay Systems reports the appointment of financial services compliance veteran Iain Duke-Richardet as compliance strategy principal.
Duke-Richardet was an original member of FINRA’s social media task force, the vendor points out, which “provided industry input to FINRA’s initial guidance … regarding how financial firms and advisors should use social media.”
Duke-Richardet’s mandate at Hearsay includes advising “Hearsay’s 100+ global financial firm clients around the ever-evolving regulatory landscape. He will be actively engaged with Hearsay’s product teams so Hearsay’s solutions continue to address new complexities as a strategic advantage to firms’ digital client experience initiatives.”
The guidance he will provide at Hearsay will range from “establishing new operating models in response to COVID-19, to adapting to various regulatory developments specific to wealth and asset management, banking, insurance, and mortgage verticals,” the vendor says in a statement.
Credit Suisse Joins ICE ETF Hub Platform
Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (ICE), an operator of exchanges and clearinghouses and a provider of data and listings services, reports that Credit Suisse has joined its ICE ETF Hub, and has become a member of the platform’s advisory committee.
ICE’s center for exchange-traded funds (ETFs) was “developed as an industry-wide, open architecture, primary market technology solution for ETFs, which forms a more standardized and simplified process for ETF creation and redemption,” ICE says in a statement, which also notes that the hub “currently supports both U.S.-listed domestic equity and fixed income ETFs.”
ICE is the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
Credit Suisse Group AG, based in Switzerland, characterizes itself as a “global wealth manager, investment bank and financial services company.”
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