In other FinTech news, Citi and HSBC embrace automated FX novation while collaborations emerge between: Sterling and Eventus; USAM and Catena Tech; and tZERO and Dinosaur Financial Group.
New API & QuantLink Access via QuantHouse
QuantHouse, a provider of market data services, an algo trading platform and infrastructure solutions, can now offer its buy-side clients “quick and streamlined access to normalized real-time and historical data to trade the U.S. cash treasuries market” via a new link to the Fenics USTreasuries platform.
The vendor has just announced direct access to the Fenics UST platform through the FeedOS application programming interface (API) and QuantLink global network, QuantHouse officials say.
Fenics UST is an electronic U.S. government securities trading venue owned and operated by BGC Financial, L.P., officials add. “Fenics UST provides buy-side participants with access to cash treasuries via two electronic marketplaces: a central limit order book designed for low-latency quantitative and systematic traders and a ‘Block Book’ designed for large institutional investors.”
The QuantHouse data normalization and global infrastructure can link clients to Fenics UST and more than 145 exchanges from any point of presence, in one protocol, through one API, according to QuantHouse. The Fenics UST platform is intended to improve transparency and cut execution costs by “reducing tick sizes down to 1/16 of a thirty-second, allowing Fenics UST to provide tighter bid-ask spreads,” officials say.
“Much like other asset classes, the U.S. cash treasuries market is moving toward more electronically traded products. Fenics UST provides a new source of rich data and an entry point into the world of USTs, opening up a previously inaccessible market to today’s buy-side participants who require greater transparency and robustness,” says Salloum Abousaleh, managing director for Americas at QuantHouse in a prepared statement.
Citi & HSBC Endorse New FX Novation Platform
Citi and HSBC are the first foreign exchange (FX) prime brokers to support an automated FX novation service from technology vendor Capitolis, and have been live on the service since December, officials say.
In addition, the leading FX players contributed to bringing the Capitolis Novation service to the market along with Capitolis, officials say. “The service has streamlined the novation process, helping to meaningfully reduce the time it takes for FX options novations to complete, for the benefit of the sell and buy side,” officials add.
The Capitolis Novation platform “automates the currently manual workflow in both FX prime broking and bilateral trading, working collaboratively to provide capital efficiencies for the FX market,” officials say. “The service helps reduce overall balance sheet notional and risk exposures that banks currently employ to meet their regulatory capital requirements. Launched in May 2018, Capitolis has created the first industry-wide platform for end-to-end FX novation processing.”
Citi has been involved since the service’s inception “to drive capital optimization and reduce costs through automated FX options novation processing,” says Christopher Perkins, global head of over-the-counter (OTC) clearing and head of foreign exchange prime broking at Citi, in a prepared statement.
“The FX Prime Brokerage novation tool will provide access to liquidity and credit in the FX options market, while allowing clients to offset their positions across their network of banks,” says Vincent Bonamy, global head of global intermediary services at HSBC, in a statement.
Sterling & Eventus Collaborate to Monitor Trade Activity
Sterling Trading Tech, a specialist in risk-as-a-service, cloud-based trading, and Eventus Systems, also a cloud-based surveillance-and-market-risk platform provider, report that Eventus has integrated Sterling’s cloud-based analytics engine into its Validus platform, which will be available to their mutual customers.
Sterling’s cloud-based analytics engine “delivers cloud-based advanced real-time risk analytics,” Sterling says, while Eventus provides “software solutions that solve compliance, market surveillance and financial risk challenges across asset classes around the globe.”
“The joint initiative allows firms to seamlessly connect their trading activity into the Eventus surveillance platform as well as jointly monitor their real-time and post-trade risk and other post-trade activity,” Sterling notes.
The Eventus Validus platform is available as either a cloud-based or real-time enterprise on-premise solution, the Sterling statement adds.
USAM Facilitates Catena Tech’s U.S. & Euro Moves
USAM Group, a sales and marketing specialist, and Catena Technologies, a Singapore-based platform provider for fintech companies looking to automate “compliance with global mandates for post-trade reporting of OTC derivatives transactions,” have agreed to use Catena’s TRACE reporting service, which automates workflow for compliance officers, with “simple dashboards for real-time status insight and rapid remediation of any reconciliation mismatches.”
The service includes:
- “Centralized trade reporting processes across regulatory jurisdictions and asset classes”;
- “Automated reconciliation and synchronization with repository”;
- “Support for post-trade lifecycle events and delta reporting”; and
- “User-friendly data interfaces, stringent change control, and powerful data enrichment.”
USAM characterizes itself as a “provider of outsourced sales and marketing services to growth-stage fintech firms,” and its efforts with Catena are intended to drive Catena’s “growth into North America and Europe.”
tZERO Partners with Dinosaur Financial Group
Dinosaur Financial Group, LLC, a New York-based institutional brokerage firm, reports a new partnership with tZERO Group, Inc., a specialist in blockchain applications for the capital markets.
Dinosaur characterizes itself as a broker-dealer that provides “brokerage accounts for investors seeking to trade tZERO’s digital security tokens, which is one of the first offerings on a decentralized network intending to be … compliant with the U.S. securities laws.”
tZERO characterizes itself as a “subsidiary of the digital retailer Overstock.com and a Medici Ventures portfolio company” that is “one of the first companies to issue security tokens.”
Its founder, Patrick Byrne, calls the trading launch a “pivotal moment for the company,” pointing out in the statement that he has “championed blockchain technology since he learned about it in 2014.”
Dinosaur was advised by Seward & Kissel LLP and tZERO was represented by Jones Day on the transaction, per its statement.
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