Post-trade controls, monitoring, and data collection are essential to mitigate the risk involved in the automation of exchange-traded futures, options, and centrally cleared derivatives. With the help of updated best practices, these controls can work well in conjunction with pre-trade controls to prevent credit events or unintended transactions. So says the Futures Industry Association (FIA)… Read More >>
Franklin Templeton to Deploy BlackRock’s Aladdin
Asset manager Franklin Templeton will be deploying the Aladdin platform from BlackRock to unify its investment management IT infrastructures across public market asset classes, officials say. The Aladdin portfolio management software offers investment firms “a way to view and manage daily investments,” according to BlackRock. “Aladdin is a comprehensive technology solution that supports the entire… Read More >>
FINRA Warns of Post-CrowdStrike Secondary Attacks
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) officials have issued a warning that the global disruption caused by the CrowdStrike Outage could be followed by secondary attacks. “In connection to the widespread disruption, member firms should be aware they may experience secondary attacks from cyber criminals seeking to leverage this incident to carry out social engineering and… Read More >>
SEC Launches Interagency Effort to Bolster Enforcement
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement has launched the Interagency Securities Council (ISC) to better coordinate enforcement among federal, state, and local agencies, SEC officials say. The ISC will involve representatives from “more than 100 departments and agencies, including federal agencies, state offices of attorneys general and state police, and local police departments… Read More >>
T+1 Glitches Emerge Between U.S. & E.U. Settlement
At a recent European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) public hearing on T+1 settlement, market participants expressed confidence that misalignments caused by North America’s transition will be resolved once the European Union (E.U.) adopts a shortened settlement cycle. While North America’s transition to T+1 was largely uneventful, hailed as a success by many, including DTCC… Read More >>
Cboe Clear Europe & ABN Amro Test CBDC as Collateral
Cboe Clear Europe, a pan-European clearinghouse, and ABN Amro Clearing Bank N.V., report that they have been testing the use of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) as collateral, essentially exploring the potential of distributed ledger technology (DLT). In particular, they have been “testing the viability of the solution for margin calls outside the opening… Read More >>
Google Cloud’s Quant Collaboration Has Lessons for Ops
We at FTF and FTF News focus much of our attention on post-trade operations. But every once in a while we take a look at some of the breakthroughs happening in the front office. Such advances ripple through to the middle- and back-office Ops teams. A case in point is the quantitative trading firm Hudson… Read More >>
Gresham & Alveo Merge to Offer More Data Services
Following a complex set of financial maneuvers, data reconciliation vendor Gresham Technologies has merged with Alveo, a market data integration and analytics solutions provider, via a transaction that Alveo’s majority owner private equity firm STG Partners helped make happen, officials say. In fact, before the current merger, STG Partners and Alliance Bidco, a company owned… Read More >>
Can a Proposed Standard Stop SSI Failures?
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 >>