Solutions
The North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) has conducted one of the largest co-ordinated series of enforcement actions by state and provincial securities regulators in the United States and Canada to crack down on fraudulent Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), cryptocurrency-related investment products, and those behind them.
NASAA members from more than 40 jurisdictions throughout North America participated in “Operation Cryptosweep,” which to date has resulted in nearly 70 inquiries and investigations and 35 pending or completed enforcement actions related to ICOs or cryptocurrencies since the beginning of May. NASAA members are conducting additional investigations into potentially fraudulent conduct that may
Hedge fund, private equity and other asset management firms are using cutting-edge, values-based marketing technology to open new doors and build stronger relationship with allocators.
This new Valuegraphics profiling identifies more precisely what drives investor decision-making, rather than relying on cocktail party chatter and on-the-run elevator pitches.
“Gut level stereotyping of, and traditionally analog relationships with, target audiences isn’t good enough anymore,” says Kyle Dunn (pictured), founder and CEO of Meyler Capital, a leading integrated capital-raising and marketing services company serving alternative investment managers.
“Similar to what consumer-facing companies have done for years, Meyler’s new Valuegraphics profiling system
As part of its expansion in the Asian FX markets, XTX Markets’ Singapore entity (XTX) is building a new electronic foreign exchange (eFX) pricing and trading engine, which will go live in Equinix’s Singapore SG1 data centre in June 2018.
XTX believes that this SG1 build-out will enhance the eFX trading experience for XTX’s counterparties in the region and in turn, help increase participation rates and volumes for eFX activity conducted within Singapore to benefit the regional FX market ecosystem.
Wai Kin Chan of XTX says: “We are delighted to be supported by MAS with regard to our regional
Thomson Reuters has added sell-side research from Deutsche Bank, Kepler Cheuvreux and European Securities Network’s (ESN) to the Investment Research Marketplace (IRM) solution on its financial desktop platform Eikon.
Thomson Reuters IRM was launched on Eikon in March 2018 to help facilitate compliance with MiFID II research unbundling requirements, and hosts subscription-based collections of a select number of sell-side contributors. Buy-side firms are able to purchase these research collections by contracting directly with Thomson Reuters, and then consume them via Eikon. Any research acquired is designed to be seamlessly integrated with all Eikon research capabilities, including its flagship Advance Research Search,
Smartkarma, an investment research network for independent research providers, has launched Boost Research, an accelerator programme designed to support investment analysts who want to start independent research businesses.
Boost Research aims to improve the overall supply of independent research to the market as well as increasing the variety of opinions in research to aid investment decisions and lead to better outcomes for end investors.
Just as Smartkarma has changed the nature of research production, consumption and distribution, with Boost Research it now wants to change the landscape of investment research provision, ensuring growth and improved diversity in the independent
QuantConnect, an open-source, cloud-based algorithmic trading platform, has made Algorithm Framework, a tool that provides a defined structure for developing algorithms and allows users to share and utilise individual code modules from other members to build and enhance their strategies, available to its community of over 55,000 users.
The Algorithm Framework tool breaks down algorithms into five core features: Universe Selection, Alpha Creation, Portfolio Construction, Execution and Risk Management. The well-defined structure permits modules to be used interchangeably; allowing quants to quickly “plug in” to powerful new models from the community. Quants can focus their time and effort on coding
Capitolis, a technology provider for the capital markets, has launched a novation service in foreign exchange (FX). Citi, HSBC, BlueCrest and Brevan Howard, among many other market participants, have collaborated with Capitolis on this service, which is the first of its kind in FX.
Capitolis Novation automates the currently manual workflow in both FX prime broking and bilateral trading, thus providing capital efficiencies for the FX market. The service helps mitigate against costs and inefficiencies linked to the manual process of novation that banks currently employ to meet their regulatory capital requirements as well as managing client credit capacity.
Carey Olsen has advised Techemy Capital Limited on the launch of HODL 1 – a closed-ended fund vehicle targeting investments into private-sale stage initial coin offerings (ICOs).
The fund, which has been authorised under the Jersey Private Fund regime, has appointed Techemy Capital Limited as investment adviser and will invest in cryptographic token deal flow.
The Techemy Group, based in New Zealand, owns and operates a range of businesses which assist in institutionalising this new asset class.
Partner James Mulholland led the Carey Olsen team advising Techemy Capital and was assisted by senior associate Lauren Fletcher.
Mulholland
INDOS Financial Limited (INDOS), the independent UK depositary, has been appointed as depositary to four alternative investment funds (AIFs) managed by Gresham House.
The AIFs are Gresham House Strategic plc, an AIM quoted investment company, Gresham House Strategic Public Equity LP and Gresham House British Strategic Investment Fund LP, both Guernsey Limited Partnerships, and Gresham House Forestry Fund LP, a Scottish Limited Partnership.
Bill Prew (pictured), CEO of INDOS, says: “We are delighted to have been appointed as depositary to the Gresham House funds. The appointment leverages our expertise as an independent depositary across a number of disciplines, including
The Maltese Government has issued three cryptocurrency bills – the Virtual Financial Assets Act, the Malta Digital Innovation Authority Act and the Innovative Technology Arrangements and Services Act.
To avoid possible negative connotations associated with the use of the word “cryptocurrencies” the laws are centred around the concept of virtual financial assets (VFA): ICOs are named initial VFA offerings, crypto-exchange becomes VFA exchange and crypto-services are defined as VFA services.
The newly introduced concept of VFA stands for “any form of digital medium recordation that is used as a digital medium of exchange, unit of account, or store of
