Solutions
By Daniel Carpenter, Head of Regulation at Meritsoft – “Not my problem gov” has long been the response from the major investment managers when it comes to settling transactions. In fairness, why should a BlackRock or Fidelity really care? After all, most of the time their brokers are responsible for telling a custodian bank about the specific settlement date.
Also, the vast majority of securities, including standard stocks and corporate bonds, are settled using the date of the transaction plus two days (T+2). There is, however, a problem on the horizon in the form of the Central Security Depository Regulation, more commonly referred
Linear Investments, a Prime Broker based in London’s West End, has partnered with Integral to provide its client base with the same level of service and functionality for FX that it already offers for equities, derivatives, and fixed income services.
Historically, Linear Investments has focused on providing prime services to professional and institutional clients across a broad spectrum of DMA investment products. Deployment of BankFXTM, Integral’s cloud-based platform, has enabled Linear Investments to design and customise every aspect of its FX platform with sophisticated pricing and risk management tools that are fully integrated with their existing systems. As a complete FX solution,
Arquitos Capital (Arquitos) has become the first independently-run client of Willow Oak Asset Management’s (Willow Oak) fund management services (FMS) offering.
Previously, Willow Oak has started or seeded other funds on its platform.
Michael Bridge, chief executive officer for Enterprise Diversified (ENDI), Willow Oak’s parent company, says: “Asset management is in our DNA at ENDI. Our primary focus going forward is expanding our successful Willow Oak asset management platform. We are, therefore, excited to add Arquitos to our Willow Oak platform, which also includes Alluvial, Bonhoeffer, and Willow Oak Select. The addition of Arquitos to Willow Oak FMS enables
Fincross International (incorporated as RUBIX Financial Group Ltd) has received an in-principle approval for an investment banking license from the Financial Services Commission of Mauritius (FSC).
Led by former Société Générale CEO of the Middle East and Africa, Eddy Abramo, Fincross International is building an ecosystem of financial products and services based on proprietary distributed ledger technology, which it says will ‘revolutionise the creation, management, safeguarding and settlement of financial products and tokenised assets for institutional, corporate, intermediary and private clients’. The company is regulated by the FSC and has welcomed EY onto its advisory board.
Mauritius, an
Powernext has introduced new PEG Spot contracts on its trading platform PEGAS to accompany the merger of the PEG Nord and TRS hubs, which completed on 1 November 2018.
PEG Futures products were already available since 28 September 2018 and successfully traded during the month of October. The first PEG Spot instruments became tradable on PEGAS on 30 October 2018.
Benoit Pouzieux, Gas System Managing Director at GRTgaz, says: “The design of the selected solution was carefully elaborated together with market participants, French TSOs, and CRE (Commission de régulation de l’énergie), in the scope of the ‘Concertation Gaz’ process
Natural language processing (NLP) is changing the way humans interact with machines in ways that were unthinkable a decade ago. Thanks to huge advances in machine learning, driven and supported by ever-faster computer processing, we are increasingly using NLP tools such as Amazon Alexa, Siri, Google assistant, Cortana, Bixby, and interacting with chatbots from our service providers.
Mosaic Smart Data (Mosaic), a real-time FICC data analytics company, has launched a new feature for its MSX platform enabling users to instantly generate text reports on their trading activity data using machine learning.
The feature will be available to all MSX users and will allow a trading activity report, which would take a member of staff hours to create, to be generated instantly.
Using a machine learning technique called natural language generation (NLG), MSX can generate trading activity reports on any set of analytics on the platform including both voice and electronic trade data. These reports highlight
RBC Investor & Treasury Services (RBC I&TS) has been appointed custodian by Picton Mahoney Asset Management (Picton Mahoney) for three liquid alternative mutual funds added to Picton Mahoney’s Fortified Fund family.
RBC I&TS will also provide fund administration and shareholder services.
The three liquid alternative mutual funds were added to the Fortified Fund family on 28 September 2018 and provide Canadian retail investors access to sophisticated hedging expertise, improved diversification and additional tools for risk mitigation.
Liquid alternatives, known as ‘liquid alts,’ are strategies used through alternative investment vehicles including derivatives, leveraging and shorting. The Ontario Securities
INTL FCStone Ltd Precious Metals (INTL) integration of Integral BankFX has enable the firm to access new liquidity sources and double trading volumes over the past year and a half.
INTL needed a solution for their precious metals client base which would allow them to improve flexibility, price more competitively and achieve their intended growth. Their prior offering only provided one price feed into their platform, resulting in sub-optimal pricing.
INTL worked in close collaboration with Integral to design and deliver a bespoke solution that supported their demands to serve their existing customers and add new business. This approach provided them
Blueprint Capital Advisors (Blueprint), an investment firm focussed on manager sourcing, due diligence and the structuring of investments in emerging managers and strategies, has adopted The Gemini Companies dedicated managed account (DMA) offering.
Through this structure, Blueprint’s investors can benefit from reduced fees and implementation costs and increased transparency of their underlying assets – both of which are strategic imperatives for Blueprint and the clients they serve.
Gemini’s DMA structure will provide a platform of managed accounts or funds dedicated to Blueprint’s institutional investors and support a variety of investment types (e.g., traditional liquids, illiquids, and existing fund
