Posts by Anna Reitman

News and Notes

€STR, alternatives to EONIA, ECB

• Transition from EONIA to €STR has impact on broad variety of financial products and processes • Market participants urged to actively prepare for change in publication time of EONIA…

Neptune and CME launch corporate bond data product

August 20, 2019

CME Group, Corporate Bonds, data analytics, Neptune Networks

Neptune Networks announced the release of their composite product, working in collaboration with CME Group, to provide clients access to a higher quality representation of the market. This latest addition…

Institutional crypto weekly roundup

August 19, 2019

News and Notes – Fintech, Uncategorized

AI ethics, Bakkt, crypto custody, crypto derivatives, Gibraltar, ICE, Lendingblock, Malta, NYDFS, Seed CX

Our weekly list of announcements about how capital markets and regulators are engaging with digital assets. World Bank issues AUD$50mn tranche using blockchain bond managed by banks, CBA eyes custody…

Google Research Football: a novel reinforcement learning environment

August 16, 2019

Google, reinforcement learning

Recent progress in the field of reinforcement learning has been accelerated by virtual learning environments such as video games, where novel algorithms and ideas can be quickly tested in a…

ING launches interest rate swap linked to ESG improvement

August 16, 2019

ESG, ING, interest rate swaps

ING has introduced the world’s first sustainability improvement derivative (SID), a derivative with a credit spread that is linked to sustainability performance. The SID is being provided to SBM Offshore…

Get the weekly SFM update – our August 16 newsletter is online

August 16, 2019

Headlines: US Treasury issuance suggests more funding market stress and a push for the Standing Repo Facility; How Traiana is phasing in equity swaps automation (Premium); AcadiaSoft’s collateral tech is…

ECB website hacked, shut down

August 15, 2019

cybersecurity, ECB

The European Central Bank (ECB) announced that unauthorized parties had breached the security measures protecting its Banks’ Integrated Reporting Dictionary (BIRD) website, which is hosted by an external provider. As…

NICE Actimize automating Reg BI compliance with ML, NLP

August 15, 2019

artificial intelligence, NICE Actimize, NLP, Reg BI, regtech

To address recently passed SEC regulation, NICE Actimize, has introduced Reg BI Surveillance for broker-dealers to manage compliance obligations, which include: providing timely disclosures to retail clients; exercising diligence (care)…

Calypso and Danish AI startup to target settlement failures

August 15, 2019

2021.AI, artificial intelligence, Calypso, settlement fails, STP

Calypso Technology and Danish enterprise AI company 2021.AI are joining forces in a new partnership with the aim of optimizing back-office processes for Calypso’s global client base. The first use…

Capital markets blockchain weekly roundup

August 15, 2019

Barclays, blockchain, CBDC, Coinbase, digitization, exchanges, fintech, PBOC

Our weekly list of announcements about how capital markets and regulators are engaging with digital assets. CoinDesk: Barclays ends banking relationship with crypto exchange Coinbase Barclays is no longer working…

Eurekahedge: AI hedge funds flat, crypto funds plunge in July

August 14, 2019

artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies, Eurekahedge, hedge funds

Fund managers using AI/machine learning strategies ended the month of July flat. The Eurekahedge AI Hedge Fund Index was up 0.01% in July and 2.71% year-to-date. The Eurekahedge AI Hedge…

How Traiana is phasing in equity swaps automation (Premium)

August 14, 2019

Automation, Equities Repo, Repo, topstory

automation, Equity Swaps, topstory, Traiana

Traiana is automating equity swaps processing and aims to become the central utility for dealing with daily reconciliations across trade, valuation and payments reporting: some of the most tedious manual…

FCA gives 18 months phase in for key PSD2 requirement

August 13, 2019

FCA, PSD2

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has agreed a plan that gives the payments and e-commerce industry extra time to implement Strong Customer Authentication (SCA). From 14 September 2019, new European…

AcadiaSoft’s collateral tech is moving to cloud: what’s going to happen on-prem? (Premium)

August 13, 2019

Automation, Collateral Management, Technology, topstory

AcadiaSoft, CloudMargin, topstory, UMR

AcadiaSoft’s recent announcement of a partnership with CloudMargin raises questions about why this move makes sense, and what’s going to happen with the fintech’s existing enterprise applications. We spoke with…

BoE: machine learning explainability for default risk analysis

August 13, 2019

AI ethics, Bank of England, machine learning

In a Bank of Engalnd staff working paper, researchers propose a framework for addressing the “black box” problem present in some Machine Learning (ML) applications. They implement the approach by…

IIAC backs data use by vendors amid privacy probe

August 12, 2019

data management, data privacy, data vendors, IIAC

In its submission to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC), the IIAC (Investment Industry Association of Canada) expressed concern about the proposal to require express client consent…

IBM introduces “AI Explainability 360”

August 12, 2019

AI ethics, IBM

Machine learning models are demonstrating impressive accuracy on various tasks and have gained widespread adoption. However, many of these models are not easily understood by the people that interact with…

NIST Q&A on exposing data without personal details

August 9, 2019

cybersecurity, data management, NIST

In a blog post, computer scientist Mary Theofanos from NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), discussed “differential privacy” and how it could be used to expose valuable information without…

Get the weekly SFM update – our August 9 newsletter is online

August 9, 2019

Headlines: It’s the Fed vs. The Clearing House on US real-time payments (Premium); What quantum full-stack means for financial services (Premium); Finadium Big Ideas Quarterly Q3 2019 now online; LSEG…

Risk: Goldman improves execution ‘by 50%’ with new algos

August 8, 2019

algorithms, artificial intelligence, Goldman Sachs, unsupervised learning

Goldman Sachs is using neural networks and other AI tools to cut slippage in stock trading, aiming to better reflect intraday trends and correlations in global equities markets. Initial use…

What quantum full-stack means for financial services (Premium)

August 7, 2019

Technology, topstory

Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Quantum Computing, QxBranch, Rigetti, topstory, UBS

Last month, Rigetti Computing, a quantum computing hardware firm with a “full-stack” strategy, acquired QxBranch, a quantum computing and data analytics software startup. The acquisition is expected to expand on…

BMLL Technologies on feature generation at scale

August 6, 2019

CLOB, machine learning, Plato

The 2019 Plato Partnership MI3 academic conference was held at the Imperial College London Business School in conjunction with Imperial College and the Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).…

Capital markets blockchain weekly roundup

August 6, 2019

blockchain, crypto regulation, Securities and Exchange Commission, Singapore

Our weekly list of announcements about how capital markets and regulators are engaging with digital assets. SEC’s Peirce talks about “non-exclusive safe harbor” for tokens in Singapore The Singapore University…

FIS Analytics survey shows tech confidence growing

August 5, 2019

artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, FIS Analytics, risk management, RPA

A recent research report from FIS Analytics revealed the financial services industry is more confident about its underlying technology. The survey tapped into thoughts from 2,000 financial services executives around…

ECB’s Cœuré scrutinizes big tech-backed stablecoins in G7 update

August 2, 2019

Benoît Cœuré, CPMI, ECB, stablecoins

Originally envisioned as an accessible and borderless way to pay, crypto assets have generally suffered from severe price volatility and limited capacity to process transactions compared with existing arrangements. Consequently,…

Get the weekly SFM update – our August 2 newsletter is online

August 2, 2019

News and Notes, Uncategorized

weekly update

Headlines: Is there a culture gap in hedge funds building treasury divisions? (Premium); Buy-side UST/repo clearing on FICC: risk, process and math (Premium); SOFR linked paper issuance had a good…

Capital markets blockchain weekly roundup

August 1, 2019

AWS, blockchain, CBDC, crypto assets, crypto regulation, FCA, MAS, Project Ubin, settlement, SGX

Our weekly list of announcements about how capital markets and regulators are engaging with digital assets. Crypto fund Incrementum’s report compares Libra v XRP in global currency competition Corporations like…

Buy-side UST/repo clearing on FICC: risk, process and math (Premium)

July 31, 2019

cleared repo, Repo, topstory

Citadel, cleared repo, DTCC. sponsored repo, FICC, J.P. Morgan, sponsored repo, topstory

In late June, DTCC announced that Citadel had completed transactions in both cash and repo using FICC’s sponsored service, which has been expanding since 2017 to include more market participants.…

Barclays: insurers early adopters of drones for risk assessments

July 30, 2019

insurance companies, Insurtech

Commercial drones provide an avenue for cost reduction ($100bn) and safety improvement which will drive widespread adoption in the coming years, according to a report from Barclays. Of the sectors…

Capital One announces data security breach

July 30, 2019

cybersecurity

Capital One Financial Corporation announced there was unauthorized access by an outside individual who obtained certain types of personal information relating to people who had applied for its credit card…

LSEG buys data provider Refinitiv for $27bn

July 29, 2019

Blackstone, data vendors, LSEG, Refinitiv, Thomson Reuters

London Stock Exchange Group announced it’s agreed definitive terms with a consortium including certain investment funds affiliated with Blackstone as well as Thomson Reuters to acquire the Refinitiv business in…

Get the weekly SFM update – our July 26 newsletter is online

July 26, 2019

Headlines: One idea for rebuilding the specials market in securities finance (Premium); How compliance tech is evolving in a distributed world (Premium); Details on the DTCC’s plan to launch a…

BPS: reinforcement learning in execution, hedging and arbitrage

July 25, 2019

artificial intelligence, machine learning, reinforcement learning

As a branch of machine learning, reinforcement learning is an approach towards training a machine to find an optimal policy for a stochastic control system, without explicitly building a model…

FIX moves into post-trade processing in standardization push

July 25, 2019

FIX Trading Community, post-trades processing, standards

FIX Trading Community announced the launch of a new set of message types to further support periodic future payment management in the post-trade space. The process for periodic payments and…

How compliance tech is evolving in a distributed world (Premium)

July 24, 2019

Technology, topstory

cybersecurity, institutional crypto, MPC, regtech, topstory

As blockchain infrastructures reach production stages in financial services, security teams are figuring out how to integrate distributed systems with legacy structures. A key aspect of institutional-grade custody, for example,…

NY financial authority creates research and innovation division

July 23, 2019

cryptocurrencies, fintech, NYDFS

New York State Department of Financial Services superintendent Linda Lacewell announced the establishment of a Research and Innovation Division that will support internal transformation and market innovation and house the…

Research shows financial services faces higher costs for data breaches

July 23, 2019

cybersecurity, IBM

From lost business to regulatory fines and remediation costs, data breaches have far-reaching consequences. The annual Cost of a Data Breach Report, conducted by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by…

Capital markets blockchain weekly roundup

July 22, 2019

Bakkt, Binance, bitcoin futures, CBDC, China, crypto custody, crypto exchanges, crypto fund, FINRA, ICE, institutional crypto, PBOC, regulatory reporting

Our weekly list of announcements about how capital markets and regulators are engaging with digital assets. FINRA issues notice for digital asset reporting FINRA reminded members to keep the regulator…

Manatt: US task force considers fintech regulation

July 19, 2019

FCA, fintech, fintech regulation, OCC, Securities and Exchange Commission, US House

The newly formed US House Financial Services Committee’s Task Force on Financial Technology (Committee) recently held its first hearing, and it included some interesting perspectives from both US and UK…

Facebook, Carnegie Mellon build first AI that beats pros in 6-player poker

July 19, 2019

artificial intelligence, Carnegie Mellon, Facebook

Facebook announced that its AI bot Pluribus, developed in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University beat human experts in six-player no-limit Hold’em, the most widely played poker format in the world.…

Get the weekly SFM update – our July 19 newsletter is online

July 19, 2019

Headlines: An opportunity for market-led reform in equity-for-equity collateral exchanges; ISLA leads overhaul of securities lending performance measurement (Premium); LIBOR to SOFR: what will make the swaps market transition?; Key…

SSON: change management is leading cause of RPA failure

July 18, 2019

Intelligent Automation, SSON

In its Global IA Report, the Shared Services and Outsourcing Network (SSON) said that lack of effective change management is one of the leading causes of RPA failure. Despite this,…

FCA changing data collection platform

July 18, 2019

News and Notes – Fintech, Uncategorized

data management, FCA

UK regulator Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will be using new technology and analytical techniques to improve how it regulates and operates in the future, working with the Bank of England…

Liquidnet: Swiss Exchange a winner after EU equivalence loss

July 17, 2019

News and Notes

EU, exchanges, Switzerland

The loss of equivalence to Swiss markets on July 1st and the introduction of the Swiss Ordinance have already led to a change in liquidity formation and the immediate winner…

ISLA leads overhaul of securities lending performance measurement (Premium)

July 17, 2019

Securities Lending

Agent Lenders, benchmarking, Beneficial Owners, data management, data vendors, fund management, topstory

At this year’s annual FISL NY conference, one of the hot topics was measuring securities lending program performance when compared to peers. This topic also featured during ISLA’s (International Securities…

CAIA: quantum computing will mess up all expectations

July 16, 2019

blockchain, CAIA, Quantum Computing

Advances in quantum computing could be a disruptive development for just about every business with an IT department, writes the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association. Among much else, quantum…

Capital markets blockchain weekly roundup

July 16, 2019

Bank of Japan, CBDC, crypto regulations, Securities and Exchange Commission, tZERO

Our weekly list of announcements about how capital markets and regulators are engaging with digital assets. NY authority licenses Seed CX for institutional crypto services The New York State Department…

Reuters: US proposes bigtech ban for financial services, digital currencies

July 15, 2019

bigtech, crypto regulation

A proposal to prevent big technology companies from functioning as financial institutions or issuing digital currencies has been circulated for discussion by the Democratic majority that leads the House Financial…

CFTC details data protection strategy

July 15, 2019

CFTC, data management