In other news, SmartStream lands Key Bank, BSTX wants to launch an exchange, and STP reaches out to OASYS clients.
Nadine Chakar Tapped to Head New Division
Nadine Chakar
The financing of digital assets will be a key focus for a new division of custodian State Street Corp.
The just-launched State Street Digital is tasked with building upon the firm’s current digital capabilities, and then expanding into cryptocurrencies, central bank digital currency, blockchain, and tokenization, officials say.
Industry veteran Nadine Chakar, who is already executive vice president and head of State Street Global Markets, will serve as the head of State Street Digital, officials say. Chakar will report to Lou Maiuri, chief operating officer (COO) of State Street Corp.
“Our proprietary GlobalLink technology platform will be an integral component of State Street Digital and will be enhanced into a digital multi-asset platform. The objective is to evolve the platform into a multi-asset platform to support crypto assets among other asset classes,” according to State Street. “The aim will also be to support our peer-to-peer ambitions by creating new liquidity venues for our clients and investors worldwide.”
“We have been developing a number of digital capabilities and other solutions as well as partnering and investing in the infrastructure that forms the foundation of State Street Digital,” Chakar says in a prepared statement. “State Street has a major role to play in the evolution of digital market infrastructure and this new division will help us bring our expertise and resources to the conversation.”
Key Bank to Use Cloud-Based SmartStream System
KeyBank N.A. has gone live with the cloud-based TLM Collateral Management (formerly known as Algorithmics/IBM Collateral) OnDemand solution from post-trade services and systems vendor SmartStream, officials say.
“Moving to the cloud enabled us to further improve and automate our operational and credit risk strategies, and reduce our internal infrastructure and support costs,” says Paula Janofsky, swap operations director for KeyBank, in a prepared statement. The collateral management offering provides services for cleared and non-cleared, over the-counter (OTC) derivatives, repo, and securities lending margining.
“KeyBank needed to streamline its back-office workflow with a cloud offering that would enhance efficiencies within their collateral management operations – this included all data capture, validation, calculation and processing,” according to SmartStream. The firm is also using application programming interfaces (APIs) “to various other reporting solutions and downstream systems,” a user interface, and a management dashboard for trend analysis and decision-making.
SEC Publishes Boston Security Token Exchange Proposal
Boston Security Token Exchange (BSTX), a joint venture of BOX Digital Markets and vendor tZERO Group, reports that its “proposed rulebook establishing itself as a securities exchange has been published by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and is open for public comment.”
The proposed BSTX exchange “offers potentially faster settlement, proprietary market data transmitted via blockchain, and better market quality for early stage companies that are thinly-traded,” officials say.
The faster settlements of T+0 or T+1) for securities listed on BSTX are intended to be “consistent with accelerated settlement capabilities currently supported by NSCC and DTC,” officials say.
The proprietary data feeds would use “a private, permissioned blockchain that it maintains and controls” and that BSTX “will make available to exchange participants certain proprietary market data related to trading activity occurring on BSTX,” officials say.
The BSTX filing “proposes suspending unlisted trading privileges (UTP) in securities that meet the proposed definition of a ‘thinly-traded security.’ This change would concentrate liquidity for such securities in one national securities exchange, making market making in such securities more attractive, and simultaneously providing earlier stage companies with more market liquidity and a broader pool of public investors,” officials say.
STP Targets OASYS Customers via Fee Deal
Securities operations outsourcing vendor STP Investment Services is offering customers of the DTCC OASYS platform — which is slated to end in October — a migration to its settlements service platform “with no setup and implementation fees,” STP officials say.
STP offers outsourcing for front, middle and back-office operational services and fintech solutions.
OASYS customers “that previously did not have a central trade manager (CTM) connection will experience sizable disruption this fall and seek alternative software solutions” if they have not yet found a replacement, STP says.
“Firms who aren’t adequately prepared will experience issues with more complex trades including step-out trading or with timely trade affirmation. Depending on where a firm is trading, this could lead to suspension of trading privileges if assets aren’t properly identified and custodied,” says Kaisha Lourens, assistant vice president of trade settlements and T3 at STP, in a prepared statement.
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