Standard Settlement Instructions (SSIs) are important for securities transactions because they specify the location for delivery after execution. However, SSIs cause a high rate of failures at the settlement stage, and the Financial Markets Standards Board (FMSB) is taking steps to rectify the situation. The ongoing use of “manual SSI exchanges, which are prone to… Read More >>
Apex Fintech Launches Platform for Building Investment Infrastructures
Apex Fintech Solutions is launching an investment infrastructure platform, dubbed Apex Ascend, that has been designed to help clients improve their capability to “operate efficiently and better navigate risk on a global scale,” officials say. The cloud-native platform offers built-in tools and data to help firms create, integrate, scale, and operate globally and offers key… Read More >>
Achieve T+1 Harmony with U.S. Before E.U.: Task Force
The investment management industry believes that the U.K. being out of sync with the T+1 settlement of the U.S. is a bigger problem than with the European Union, and the U.K. needs to get its “skates on” with implementation. That’s according to Andrew Douglas, chair of the U.K. Accelerated Settlement Task Force (AST), which advocates… Read More >>
BNP Paribas Adds Analytics to FX Credit Allocation
French banking giant BNP Paribas has added to a solution that it’s using to streamline the allocation of credit for FX transactions between banks — Dynamic Credit from CobaltFX — with the deployment of the CobaltFX Analytics offering, officials say. The newly launched CobaltFX Analytics offering builds on the Dynamic Credit product, which has been… Read More >>
Canada Life Asset Management Taps Northern Trust
The Canada Life Asset Management (CLAM) group has picked Northern Trust to provide asset servicing solutions because of the provider’s focus on operating model efficiency and on data quality, according to the firm. The new arrangement will see Northern Trust providing middle office outsourcing, global custody, securities lending, fund administration, and depositary services which should… Read More >>
ANNA, DTIF & GDF to Build Links to Digital Assets
The Association of National Numbering Agencies (ANNA) and the Digital Token Identifier Foundation (DTI Foundation) want to build “a strong foundation” that links traditional and digital finance through a new partnership with Global Digital Finance (GDF), officials say. The GDF is a non-profit association of member firms, which offers “an open innovation platform for advocating… Read More >>
DTCC & Chainlink Explore Mutual Fund Tokenization
The DTCC and Chainlink have been busy with something they are calling the “Smart NAV pilot,” which was an attempt to apply the digital asset capabilities of both organizations to mutual fund tokenization. (NAV is “net asset value,” or an investment firm’s total assets once all liabilities have been subtracted.) In mid-May, both players went… Read More >>
T+1: No Victory Until Affirmations Reach 100%
As many teams in North America canceled their weekly T+1 transition meetings, Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler has called on the U.K. to trigger its own implementation. Top of the list of lessons to learn from North America’s transition, Gensler said, is setting a date. “Until you do that, it is a lot… Read More >>
GBST & Wipro Take On Legacy IT via Partnership
GBST and global outsourcer Wipro Ltd. have signed a partnership to help firms move off legacy investment IT and ops platforms and possibly toward artificial intelligence (A.I.) technologies, officials say. The deal unites GBST’s scalable wealth management administration platform with Wipro’s IT, business processing, and back-office outsourcing services. The arrangement will consolidate administrative services “through… Read More >>
Tokenized Securities Offer Many Ops Benefits
(The digital overhaul for securities trading and operations is moving quickly to the next chapter facilitated by blockchains, cryptocurrencies, tokenization, and more. To help those working in traditional securities operations, FTF News reached out to Thomas Sullivan, managing director-head of business development for digital assets at Societe Generale. Sullivan agreed to provide explanations on the… Read More >>
