In other FinTech news, vendor big xyt adds TCA support, tZERO and RJO have executive moves, and Liquidnet offers a new workflow tool.
Pérez-Tasso to Replace Leibbrandt on July 1
SWIFT headquarters
Javier Pérez-Tasso has been appointed the new CEO of SWIFT, and he will replace Gottfried Leibbrandt on July 1. Leibbrandt previously announced at the end of last year that he would be stepping down at the end of June.
Pérez-Tasso has been a member of the SWIFT executive team for the past seven years, and serves as CEO for the Americas and U.K. region, officials say.
The appointment follows an internal and external search conducted by the SWIFT board’s human resources committee, advised by a professional search firm, officials say. The appointment of an internal candidate “will allow for a smooth transition,” officials say.
“I am fortunate to start this mandate building on Gottfried’s strong legacy, and I look forward to maintaining our focus on operational excellence as well as to accelerating SWIFT’s transformation during a period of unprecedented change and opportunity for the community,” Pérez-Tasso says in a prepared statement.
Javier Pérez-Tasso
Pérez-Tasso has been part of SWIFT since 1995 and was appointed to his current post in September 2015, officials say.
“In this position, he significantly deepened SWIFT’s engagement model with global transaction banks and successfully delivered business development results in high-growth markets. He was also an Executive sponsor of SWIFT’s Customer Security Programme from 2016 to 2018, helping to formulate and lead SWIFT’s response to the growing cyber challenge facing the community,” officials say.
Before chief executive for the Americas and U.K. region, Pérez-Tasso served as chief marketing officer in a role that required him to develop SWIFT’s current five-year strategy, officials say.
“The SWIFT2020 strategy he defined has led to the co-operative’s renewed focus on cross-border payments, expansion into financial crime
Gottfried Leibbrandt
compliance and deeper presence in the market infrastructures area, including its entry into instant payments,” officials say. “Earlier in his career, Pérez-Tasso held a number of technology and leadership positions in business development in regional offices in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.”
In his role as CEO of SWIFT, Pérez-Tasso will be based at SWIFT’s headquarters in La Hulpe, Belgium.
Big xyt Adds Transaction Cost Analysis Support
big xyt, a provider of data and data analytics that was formally established in 2014, reports that, after consultation with clients, its analytics platform will now include transaction cost analysis (TCA).
The vendor spotlights its ability to “capture, normalise, collate, and store trade data at a granularity that has not previously been available in the market. Multiple delivery options include dashboard and API [i.e., application program interface] solutions which allow clients to add their own proprietary data layer, including their trade history. Clients are able to interrogate the information in multiple ways with an automated ad-hoc reporting facility or integrate this into their own internal applications for analysis such as broker review, sales, workflow optimisation as well as compliance & best execution.”
“Working with our clients has enabled us to evolve our offering to include TCA,” Robin Mess, the vendor’s CEO, says in a statement. “The normalised data we provide enables them to analyse the data allowing them to see the full picture and make fully informed comparisons.”
big xyt is cloud-based, according to the company, and “requires no technical integration.”
tZERO Names CEO for Retail Broker-Dealer to Come
Technology vendor tZERO has named the former managing director of equity trading at Dinosaur Financial Group Elliot Grossman as CEO of its forthcoming broker-dealer affiliate, and he will drive the creation and management of the brokerage, officials say.
Grossman is a founding member of Dinosaur, an institutional brokerage firm based in New York, officials say. Grossman also served as the senior vice president at DCM Advisors, an SEC registered investment advisory firm.
During his 15 years at Dinosaur, Grossman is credited with pioneering the company’s equity business and was also in charge of the firm’s electronic trading systems and strategies, officials say. He also assisted in the development of the company’s U.S. private client group as well as launched the firm’s international equity trading business.
As CEO, Grossman will be responsible for establishing and managing the retail broker-dealer businesses, which includes sales trading, electronic execution and portfolio execution for buy- and sell-side clients, according to tZERO officials. The new brokerage affiliate is in the process of applying for required regulatory approvals prior to commencing operations.
“Having worked with Elliot Grossman at Dinosaur Financial Group, I am confident that he is the right person to build on our momentum,” says tZERO CEO Saum Noursalehi, in a prepared statement. “Elliot’s 15 years of experience in capital markets will be invaluable in building the next generation retail broker-dealer. His skills in combination with our expertise in automation and building world-class user experiences will revolutionize how investors trade assets.”
Founded in 2014, tZERO is a blockchain provider for capital markets and is a portfolio company of Medici Ventures, the blockchain subsidiary of Overstock.com, officials say.
Liquidnet Launches Ecosystem Pro
Liquidnet, an institutional investment network, reports the launch of Ecosystem Pro, which it describes as a “workflow and blotter management tool designed to help buy-side traders analyze, monitor, and automate execution strategies across multiple symbols simultaneously in Liquidnet’s Execution Ecosystem.”
Liquidnet’s Ecosystem Pro is composed of three main features: list detection, create wave and pro blotter, the vendor says.
List Detection “allows traders to pause, leverage Liquidnet’s analytical tools, and assess which execution tools fit their trading objectives. Once sorted by trading objectives and order characteristics, traders can then use utilize Create Wave to action a wave of orders at once.”
In Blotter Pro view, “orders and waves are then grouped for easy monitoring allowing traders to act quickly … and change course as desired,” per Liquidnet.
Ecosystem Pro is currently available “for all of Liquidnet’s 1,000+ buy-side Member firms that are currently using Liquidnet 5,” the vendor notes, adding that Liquidnet 5 is “a desktop application for equity buy-side traders that provides access to the liquidity in Liquidnet’s global execution ecosystem as well as the Virtual High Touch product suite.”
Liquidnet, founded in 1999, currently includes “more than 1,000 institutional investors that collectively manage $33 trillion in equity and fixed income assets,” according to a statement from the vendor.
RJO Promotes to Fill CCO Post
Chicago-based R.J. O’Brien & Associates (RJO), founded in 1914, which characterizes itself as the oldest and largest independent futures brokerage and clearing firm in the United States, reports the promotion of Kathleen E. Clapper to senior director and chief compliance officer (CCO).
Clapper takes the post following the retirement of CCO Nancy Westwick.
Clapper joined RJO in February 2018 as director of compliance. Previously, she spent more than 12 years at the CME Group in several positions pertaining to the exchange’s self-regulatory organization (SRO) functions, including administering financial and compliance examinations of futures commission merchants, RJO says.
Clapper joined the CME Group in 2005 as a staff auditor. In 2010, she became a senior examiner, financial and regulatory surveillance, moving up to supervisor in 2013 and to manager in 2016, officials say.
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