Our free FinTech roundup covers the CFTC’s latest whistleblower award, Marex Spectron hiring from RJO, Etrading’s new execs, and Baillie Gifford’s new post-trade system.
Gresham to Integrate Inforalgo with Clareti
Reconciliations vendor Gresham Technologies has acquired pre- and post-trade data management specialist Inforalgo Information Technology Ltd. in an effort to to expand Gresham’s regulatory reporting capabilities, officials say.
Inforalgo reports that it offers cloud-based, straight through processing (STP) solutions and automation technologies that help financial institutions with complex real-time connectivity such as regulatory reporting for FINRA
TRACE, the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) and MiFID, officials say. The vendor’s client base includes banks, asset managers, market participants, and market access providers, officials say.
“The acquisition of Inforalgo extends Gresham’s Clareti portfolio of cloud services with over 80 adaptors enabling rapid integration to exchanges, ECN’s and multi-lateral trading facilities, and regulatory reporting venues alongside existing Clareti bank integration and financial messaging capabilities,” according to a statement from Gresham.
The future integration of the Inforalgo service with Clareti Transaction Control offering will facilitate data ingestion and transformation, reconciliation, validation, real-time submission, and exception management capabilities, officials add.
“This acquisition fits with our strategy of extending the range of connectivity, reconciliation and control services available to our customers,” says Ian Manocha, CEO of Gresham, in a prepared statement.
All permanent Inforalgo employees have joined Gresham including Phil Flood, chief commercial officer, and John Wilson, chief operations officer (COO), officials say. “The team will continue to operate (post COVID restrictions) from Unit 5, The Courtyard, 707 Warwick Road, Solihull, B91 3DA,” according to Gresham. Gresham did not release financial information about the acquisition.
CFTC Awards $9 Million to Whistleblower
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) reports an award of approximately $9 million to a whistleblower.
The whistleblower’s “specific, credible, and timely tip led the Commission to open an investigation and ultimately bring a successful enforcement action,” the CFTC says in a statement, which calls the whistleblower pay-out “one of the five largest granted in the history of the CFTC Whistleblower Program.”
The CFTC’s whistleblower program was created under Section 748 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, the statement points out, noting that, since the first award in 2014, the CFTC has awarded approximately $120 million to whistleblowers.
Whistleblowers are eligible to receive between 10 and 30 percent of the monetary sanctions collected, per the commission.
Informants can submit a whistleblower tip electronically by filing a Form TCR (Tip, Complaint or Referral) online here https://bit.ly/2PoN4E2.
Marex Spectron Taps RJO for Clearing Services Post
Thomas Texier
Marex Spectron, the commodities specialist firm headquartered in London, England, reports the appointment of Thomas Texier as head of clearing services. The appointment marks an accelerated expansion of its clearing business, the firm says in a statement.
Texier, who joined Marex Spectron on July 20, is based in London and is “tasked with expanding and overseeing the day-to-day operations of Marex Clearing Services globally.”
Previously, Texier was managing director for R.J. O’Brien’s London business and also head of enterprise IT for the firm globally, according to the statement, which also notes that, before he joined RJ. O’Brien, Texier was chief operating officer (COO) of the Kyte Group and deputy general manager of Société Générale Japan.
Marex Clearing Services was launched in November 2019 to “consolidate and advance Marex Spectron’s existing clearing offerings,” including “end-to-end clearing and execution services for large wholesale customers, including hedge funds, CTA’s, institutional money managers and pension funds,” per the statement.
Marex Spectron itself was formed in May 2011, after Marex Financial and Spectron Group combined. The firm maintains 15 offices worldwide, with more than 700 employees across Europe, Asia and America.
Etrading Software Adds 3 Senior Execs
Etrading Software has hired three new senior executives as part of a proposed managed-services operations expansion in Europe and Asia.
According to the vendor’s statement: James Haskell will join as business operations officer; David Lane will join as technical operations officer; and Will Palmer will join as chief information security officer.
Etrading Software “designs, builds and operates technology solutions, framing, facilitating and navigating complex decision-making structures — from incubation to execution — that provide financial institutions and industry initiatives vendor-neutral technology solutions tailored to the needs of the OTC [over the counter] markets,” the vendor says in a statement.
Baillie Gifford Deploys Corfinancial’s Post-Trade Platform
Scottish investment manager Baillie Gifford has gone live with a new post-trade system, and recently migrated its futures transactions processing to Salerio from Corfinancial, a specialist software and services provider, officials say.
The Salerio post-trade processing solution automates “the flow of securities and treasury trades from matching through settlement,” according to the vendor. The platform was initially slated for processing Baillie Gifford’s equity and bond trading, “but since April 2020 futures transactions have been added to the asset class mix.”
“Baillie Gifford selected Salerio in 2018 after a review of its proprietary trade matching and settlement practices. The firm decided that it was time to transition its existing operating model to a strategic solution that encompassed the entire trade processing lifecycle,” according to a statement from Corfinancial.
“The fact that we went live on futures during lockdown bears testimony to the robust nature of the Salerio application and the flexibility of Corfinancial’s implementation team,” says Louise Laidlaw, head of settlements at Baillie Gifford, in a prepared statement. “We ran Salerio in parallel with our legacy futures application until we were ready to switch the old system off. Ultimately, we had a flawless transition,” Laidlaw adds.
Using Salerio for futures trades has led to the “replacement of faxed trade notifications (a requirement from one of its custodians) with more streamlined SWIFT instructions. In a working from home environment, this manual handling proved to be particularly challenging before Salerio came onstream,” vendor officials say.
“Bringing futures into scope with Salerio has eliminated some time-consuming, manual processing for us,” Laidlaw adds. “Moreover, the transition has improved our control, authorization and visibility of trade matching and settlement for futures transactions.”
Based in Edinburgh, Baillie Gifford describes itself as “a large-scale investment business” that is an independent private partnership “focused entirely on our clients and their investments.”
Corfinancial, which offers software solutions and advisory services to financial services firms across the world, has offices in London, New York and Boston.
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