Digital Assets Platform Due Later This Year New school crypto-currency and other digital assets have gotten the blessings of the establishment with the news that BNY Mellon is creating a digital assets unit slated to create a secure infrastructure to facilitate the transfer, safekeeping, and issuance of digital assets. The new Digital Assets unit “will… Read More >>
BNY Mellon & Google Cloud Take On Treasury Settlements
BNY Mellon to Apply Google Cloud Technologies The Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon) will be using Google Cloud technologies to help U.S. Treasury market participants “better predict billions of dollars in daily settlement failures,” officials say. The combined effort is also intended to “generate significant capital and liquidity savings, and unlock operational efficiencies,”… Read More >>
Is Your Back Office an Ugly Duckling?
(The pandemic-inspired market rally rollercoasters and the recent retail vs. institutional trading battles focused on GameStop Corp. and AMC Entertainment Holdings have underscored the operational drawbacks of volatility. The ripple effects are top of mind for Daniel Carpenter, head of regulation at Meritsoft, a provider of specialized cash and tax management solutions — receivables and… Read More >>
Will the London Metal Exchange End Outcry Trading?
London Metal Exchange (LME) officials are seriously considering closing their 144-year-old open outcry futures trading floor, dubbed the Ring, but it’s unclear if this action is a sign that other outcry trading venues will follow suit. The Ring has been shut down for the past 10-plus months by the pandemic lockdown, and in that time,… Read More >>
Finastra & HCL to Move Treasury to the Cloud
Digital Venture Could End Manual Processes Financial operations systems vendor Finastra is partnering with HCL Technologies and its cloud-native services to offer “treasury management technology in the cloud to smaller banks” based in Northern Europe, North America, India and the Philippines, officials say. “Historically, many banks have been reliant on manual processes for treasury management,… Read More >>
Northern Trust to Cut 500 from Global Staff
Custodian and service provider Northern Trust confirms that it will be shrinking its global workforce by approximately 500 positions, which is less than 2.5 percent of its total staff, due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing low interest rates. The staff cuts follow Northern Trust Corp.’s report of a third-quarter net income… Read More >>
Keep Hope Alive for 2021
It’s next to impossible to predict what the major trends in securities operations will be in 2021. The industry is still focused on what the new world will be after the fatal COVID-19 pandemic is defeated by vaccines and new behaviors. We may be in a holding pattern for at least the first six months… Read More >>
Layoffs Are Key to ABN Amro’s Digital Transformation
Dutch banking giant ABN Amro will begin a two-year staff trimming process that will reduce its global workforce by 15 percent — a key part of an $840 million streamlining said to be essential to its digital transformation, according to an announcement on Nov. 30. Media outlets and financial markets analysts have estimated that the… Read More >>
Mutualized Ops Automation Cuts Costs by 20%: DTCC
Post-trade systems and services provider DTCC is making its case for the cost-cutting value of mutualized, automated securities operations after surveying nine global broker-dealers that use its key offerings. The DTCC defines mutualization as “sharing the cost of utilitarian functions” that involves the adoption of “a no-touch processing workflow,” officials say. “Ultimately, the scale and… Read More >>
Deutsche Bank Sells Postbank Systems to TCS
Sale Underscores Deutsche Bank’s Transformation Deutsche Bank is selling Postbank Systems AG to outsourcing giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a key milestone in the bank’s efforts to streamline operations and transform itself. “Under the terms of the transaction, TCS will acquire 100 percent of the shares of Postbank Systems AG from Deutsche Bank AG,” according… Read More >>