Get your nominations ready for the highly competitive FTF News Technology Innovation Awards 2022 — now in its 12th year — presented by Financial Technologies Forum and the FTF News service. Since 2011, FTF has celebrated and recognized the professionals, financial technology vendors, service providers, industry bodies, regulators, and other industry participants that have made… Read More >>
Cloud-Native Apps Are Better: Q&A with CompatibL
(Over the past two years, securities firms have begun to embrace the next chapter of cloud computing — cloud-native systems that exploit services and pipelines. This is essential for firms that want to reap the full benefits of the cloud, says Olga Orekhvo, chief operating officer (COO) at CompatibL Technologies. FTF News recently got time… Read More >>
Clearing Is Broken: Q&A with RQD*’s CEO
(Consolidation across the clearing sector has resulted in less competition, fewer options for securities firms, and a broken system, says Michael Sanocki, CEO of RQD* Clearing, a new correspondent clearing provider. Thus RQD’s mission is to reach out to firms that are “sorely underserved” and “ripe for disruption.” RQD, which officially launched last month, offers… Read More >>
Remote Staffing Boosts Cloud’s Appeal: Q&A
(Cloud computing got a major boost during the pandemic when most staff members at financial services firms were compelled to work remotely, says Olga Orekhvo, chief operating officer (COO) at CompatibL Technologies. In fact, many financial services firms have embraced more than one cloud provider, which presents a new set of challenges. Orekhvo joined CompatibL… Read More >>
AWS Outage Halted FINRA Systems on Dec. 7
Key online systems of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) were unavailable on Tuesday, Dec. 7, because of an outage at cloud computing provider Amazon Web Services (AWS) that lasted about seven hours, according to alerts from the self-regulatory organization and Amazon. AWS has become a major cloud provider for financial services firms, particularly those… Read More >>
Time to Rethink Your SFTR Reporting Efforts?
(To quote the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the Securities Financing Transactions Regulation (SFTR) “responds to the need to enhance the transparency of securities financing markets and thus of the financial system. The Regulation was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 23 December 2015.” For firms that do business in… Read More >>
Regulatory Burdens Don’t End in the Cloud: FINRA
Many securities-trading firms have shifted their IT infrastructures to the cloud, but that does not change their regulatory responsibilities and may lead to new ones, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), a self-regulatory organization (SRO) for broker-dealers. In a new research report, FINRA officials acknowledge that while cloud computing models promise “the potential… Read More >>
Here’s How to Prevent a Ransomware Attack
Ransomware is on the rise across all sectors, including financial services, and in late June the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYSDFS) provided some statistics that are disturbing. “From January 2020 through May 2021, DFS-regulated companies have reported 74 ransomware attacks. These attacks ranged in impact, from crippling days-long shutdowns to minor disruption… Read More >>
Equiti to Use FlexTrade’s FX Platform MaxxTrader
MaxxTrader to Bolster Equiti’s Prime Services Equiti, an online trading technology provider, will be using the MaxxTrader foreign exchange platform from FlexTrade Systems as the basis for its prime of prime services offering, officials say. MaxxTrader will help Equiti provide its prime of prime customers with “global FX liquidity aggregation, trade execution management, and institutional… Read More >>
BMO-AWS Partnership Covers Capital Markets, Too
BMO Financial Group will be using Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its preferred cloud provider for a “digital first” strategy that will be implemented across BMO as a “scalable and highly available” platform for many businesses, including capital markets operations. BMO will move “strategic workloads to AWS that support its retail and commercial banking, investment… Read More >>
