The financial services industry is entering a period of rapid change. Where the industry stood five years ago is extremely different than where it stands today. With any type of change ultimately come challenges, and the financial services industry is certainly not lacking in that area. According to a recent Tower Group whitepaper commissioned by
Compliance
FTF Heads to Boston – Securities Ops Seminar Wrap-Up
In case you weren’t following our live updates on twitter last week (#FTFSecOps), I thought I would bring you up to speed on the issues discussed at our Securities Operations Seminar in Boston last week. The day got kicked off with a timely discussion on the impact of Dodd-Frank and other regulatory initiatives for securities
Financial Technology
Financial Innovation Trends: A New Catalyst Emerges
Guest Contributor: James Pasmantier, Vice President of Professional Services at Brightidea Innovation is never easy, and the Financial Services industry is far from a safe haven for the common challenges faced by all organizations. These days, the concept of ‘financial innovation’ has come under scrutiny, see one example in an Economist debate on the subject
Back-Office
Attention Vendors: Clients Need New Ways to Manage Risk
Quantifi recently released survey results concerning how financial firms plan on implementing new solutions in order to manage and measure their counterparty risk. According to the survey results, 100 percent of respondents either have already or plan on implementing major changes in their counterparty risk systems, but what is the need behind this sudden system
Financial Technology
Operational Trading Technology Trends in 2011
Guest Contributor: Martin Hakker, EVP of Marketing, Fidessa and Managing Director, Fidessa Canada Corporation Technology investment is on the rise this year as firms look to capitalize on the new look trading environment. Despite many companies postponing infrastructure projects during the downturn, sophisticated tools with adequate flexibility are required to manage the raft of new
Financial Technology
A Battle Royal: Broker vs. Independent – The importance of 3rd Party Pricing Examined
Guest Contributor: Dario Cintioli, Products Director, StatPro The debate between referencing broker pricing or independent pricing has been raging among asset managers in recent years. Broker pricing is often arrived at through the averaging of assets, which can cause a biased valuation. On the other hand, pricing technologies haven’t kept up with the pace of
Cloud
Cloud Computing & Outsourcing
I read an article this week by Bob McDowall of Aite Group asking the reader “is cloud computing taking over Indian outsourcers?” Personally, I think it’s too soon to definitively say that the cloud is a threat to outsourcing as we currently know it, but nonetheless, it’s an interesting thought. Over the next few years,
Buy-Side
All Roads Lead to the Smart Router
Guest Contributor: Renée Colyer, CEO, Forefactor As if it wasn’t complicated enough before – now, because of the OPR (Order Protection Rule) in Canada, there are two types of smart order routers (venue and broker offered) that the buyside needs to understand. On top of that, the use of algorithms has prompted much confusion about
Buy-Side
Fragmentation v Consolidation
Guest Contributor: Steve Grob, Fidessa Seems like equity and other capital marketplaces are going through the ying and yang of fragmentation and consolidation. Just as we hear about another merger, we read about another new venue going live or more regulation encouraging competition. This provides market participants with a problem, especially in terms of understanding
Buy-Side
Exploring Public & Private Clouds
(Guest Contributor: Brian McCallion, global performance architect at AIG.) Cloud computing has essentially been private from the beginning. Google, for one, demonstrates that the world’s most successful search engine runs not on an IBM Power, Sun Enterprise, or other massively powerful machine engineered for business by the go-to vendors for computer solutions. More in keeping
