Eugene Grygo, Chief Content Editor, FTF News
As 2015 winds down, FTF News will be taking a look back over a year that had many surprises – maybe more than the predicted trends.
We will be having a daily news flow this week, including news for Christmas Eve. We will be taking off on Christmas and New Year’s Day, but will have content for the time after Christmas and before the start of the New Year.
For the interim, we will be reviewing the top FTF News securities operations stories based upon readership responses and our analysis of the changing landscape.
We will also identify the top industry trends for 2015 and focus on the one trend that we think has had the biggest impact on the widest array of securities operations.
As we look back, there were the predictable events such as the interest rate hike of the Federal Reserve during the last quarter of the year — even though many thought it would happen sooner.
In the U.S., we have also seen major advances in the push for shorter settlement via the successful rebirth of the T+2 movement. Goals, deadlines and regulatory changes are underway and will likely be clarified in 2016. It is a key issue where there is great consensus that will require wide collaboration among industry players and internally within firms among business, operations and IT groups.
Almost out of the blue, the Ops industry became aware of Blockchain technology, the humble offspring of the mysterious and controversial Bitcoin crypto-currency effort. The distributed ledger technology has truly captured the imagination of many industry players – there are reports that some are thinking of abstracting the concept and creating competing Blockchains.
The interest and exploration are strong because of Blockchain’s ability to undermine entrenched Ops practices such as clearing and settlement. I have seen hints that Blockchain may help with collateral management. It looks now as if Blockchain could have either a huge impact on Ops or after all the smoke and hype could evolve into a technology that serves very specific, niche markets. Either way, it’s a fascinating trend.
On other fronts, many were hoping that the Republicans running for president and Democrats representing upset Americans would make the downsides of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) a big campaign issue, given that it facilitates the very long arms of the U.S. federal government. Instead, other issues have grabbed the headlines in the U.S., putting FATCA on the back-burner. The issue may be used in Europe to boost fundraising among ex-pats, but it’s not likely to get any attention by the mainstream media. So, for many Americans overseas, most global banks and other financial services firms, the burdens of FATCA are not going away anytime soon.
That is just a sampling of what we will tackle this week and next. We will also be featuring the top video interviews with Ops industry movers and shakers from Financial Technology Forum’s conferences.
If for no other reason, you can tune in frequently to get relief from the holiday madness, which we are wishing you have lots of.
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