Our FinTech update also covers news from: Citi & ICE’s ETF Hub; exec shuffles at State Street and the DTCC; MarketAxess & Deutsche Börse; and NeoXam & NYFIX.
EBSI Connectivity Slated for Q4
EBS, a provider of electronic trading platforms and IT for foreign exchange markets, will be offering connectivity between the EBS Institutional (EBSI) execution management system (EMS) and thinkFolio, a multi-asset investment management platform from vendor IHS Markit, vendor officials say.
The new service is slated to be available during the fourth quarter of 2020, and thinkFolio clients will be offered access to EBSI with the intention of lowering their trading costs, officials say. The vendors hope to offer mutual clients access to thinkFolio’s cash and currency management capabilities, analytics, and liquidity.
“The integration of workflows across the two systems will enable portfolio managers and traders to aggregate or split FX orders in thinkFolio, before routing the orders to be executed through EBSI,” officials add.
“We are continuously evaluating opportunities to provide our clients with a richer suite of liquidity venues to support the implementation of their investment and hedging strategies,” says Brett Schechterman, managing director and global head of business for thinkFolio at IHS Markit, in a prepared statement.
Citi Joins ICE’s ETF Hub
Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (ICE), an operator of exchanges and clearinghouses and a provider of mortgage technology, data and listings services, reports that Citi has joined its exchange-traded funds (ETF) hub as an authorized participant.
Citi also was a founding member of the ICE ETF Hub advisory committee, providing early feedback on the design of the platform, according to an ICE statement.
The ICE ETF hub is an “industry-wide, open architecture, technology solution, offering a more standardized and simplified process for the creation and redemption of ETF shares,” according to the statement.
The hub “currently supports both US-listed domestic equity and fixed income ETFs,” per ICE.
ICE, which owns the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), notes that it was created in the year 2000 “to modernize markets.”
State Street Revamps Alpha Leadership Team
Spiros Giannaros
State Street Corp. has adjusted its State Street Alpha leadership team by naming Spiros Giannaros to the post of CEO of Charles River Development (CRD), officials say.
Giannaros joined State Street in June 2019 and was later appointed president of CRD in December 2019, which marked his return to CRD. He previously spent 15 years at CRD, where he was a managing director of the Americas and had management oversight of CRD’s broker-dealer business.
With this latest appointment, Giannaros will oversee all aspects of CRD’s global business and will report to John Plansky, global head of State Street Alpha, officials say.
The front- and middle-office components of Alpha are from the Charles River Investment Management Solution (IMS) platform, a result of State Street’s $2.6 billion acquisition of CRD two years ago.
Before becoming part of State Street, Giannaros was a partner at IHS Markit (formerly Markit), and was responsible for the vendor’s enterprise data management, warehouse and reporting businesses, software managed services, and the thinkFolio business, an order management and portfolio modeling system, officials say.
“Giannaros has taken a lead role in driving Alpha to cloud computing through a previously announced strategic relationship with Microsoft and delivering on inter-operability commitments through previous announced relationships with MSCI and Qontigo. He is also leading the development of State Street’s innovative platform offerings, including enterprise data management, warehousing, and data delivery,” according to State Street.
Dick Taggart
In addition, Dick Taggart, executive vice president, will expand his responsibilities to manage State Street Alpha Services, which encompasses State Street’s data management outsourcing services, DataGX, and middle office outsourcing services, Investment Manager Services (IMS).
Officials add that Plansky will “oversee an expanded organization, with an increased focus on State Street Alpha platform management across all institutional and wealth participants, State Street Alpha Analytics, client digital experience and data delivery.”
DTCC Names Chief Compliance Officer
Lisa Hershey
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC), a post-trade infrastructure systems and services provider for the financial services industry, reports the appointment of Lisa Hershey as managing director and chief compliance officer (CCO). Her appointment is effective on January 1, 2021.
Hershey, who joined DTCC in 2009, will report to Ann Shuman, DTCC’s managing director and general counsel.
She takes over from Susan DeSantis, the firm’s current CCO, who plans to retire in early 2021, after a 25-year career at the corporation.
According to the DTCC, in 2019 its subsidiaries “processed securities transactions valued at more than U.S. $2.15 quadrillion. Its depository provides custody and asset servicing for securities issues from 170 countries and territories valued at U.S. $63.0 trillion.”
MarketAxess to Buy Reg Hub from Deutsche Börse Group
MarketAxess Holdings Inc., the operator of an electronic trading platform for fixed-income securities, and the provider of market data and post-trade services for the fixed-income markets, has entered into an agreement to acquire the regulatory reporting business of Deutsche Börse Group.
MarketAxess will acquire the business through Trax NL B.V., its wholly owned subsidiary in the Netherlands.
The Deutsche Börse hub is a pan-European reporting and compliance platform that enables buy- and sell-side clients to meet their regulatory obligations and transparency requirements across multiple regulations, such as MiFID II and EMIR, MarketAxess says in a statement.
The hub’s services include “transaction and trade reporting, best execution reporting … as well as APA and ARM services,” according to the statement. “APA” and “ARM” are acronyms for “Approved Publication Arrangement” and “Approved Reporting Mechanism,” respectively.
The transaction is expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2020, according to the firms. The Deutsche Börse Group is headquartered in Frankfurt/Rhine-Main.
NeoXam Clients Can Use FIX Links to NYFIX Services
NeoXam is changing its partnership with Itiviti so that asset manager users of its portfolio management system can use standard FIX links to access the NYFIX Order Routing Network and NYFIX Matching services, streamlining post-trade matching, officials say.
“The arrangement strengthens an existing relationship with Itiviti trading community of over 1,600 market participants. The move, which removes the need for investment managers to build their own connectivity, comes as regulatory pressures increase demands on buy-side firms to carry out more trading electronically,” according to NeoXam.
“FIX messaging has always been at the heart of trading communications for financial institutions, but the rapid changes we’re seeing in global market structure makes this protocol even more important today,” says Joseph Cordahi, product strategy director, at NeoXam, in a prepared statement.
Itiviti provides buy-side firms with direct electronic access (DEA) to brokers for order execution through NYFIX and post-trade allocation, confirmation, and affirmation through NYFIX Matching.
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