Feature
Take Away Spreadsheets? From My Cold, Dead Hands
Microsoft Excel spreadsheets will continue to be widely used at asset management firms for the foreseeable future. But new regulations, technological advancements, and risk management concerns are leading buy-side firms to examine ways to lessen their…
All Eyes on Outsourcing
After UBS announced last month that it would outsource most of its fixed-income trading platform to Murex and Ion Trading, Marina Daras looks at how financial services firms intend to manage their IT costs by reassessing their outsourcing options.
Real-Time Risk: Keeping It Real
Pitches for real-time risk solutions focus more on the sell side than the buy side. Jake Thomases set out to determine how much hedge funds and asset managers care about calculating risk in the blink of an eye. Some do, but it’s largely dependent on…
Europe Takes First Steps Toward Electronic Derivatives Trading
With provisional agreement on the Mifid II text by European political authorities, electronic execution of derivatives is set to spread over the Atlantic Ocean in the near future. In terms of equivalence, interoperability, and mutual recognition, how…
Quality Time for Counterparty Data
A recent report by an international group of market supervisors has expressed concern about firms’ ability to report on their counterparties. Why does this area of data management remain so challenging and what should firms do to a get a handle on it,…
Applying Wikis To Data Management
The financial services industry has been slow to adopt the wiki technology that has changed the way people produce and share information. However, industry participants believe wikis have the potential to improve data quality in the financial industry,…
Kotch's Confidence: CTO Mary Kotch Balances Family with AIG's Rebuild
AIG CTO Mary Kotch sits down with Anthony Malakian to discuss her ascent up the technology ladder to her current position, and how she manages to find a work–life balance while helping the insurance giant to restore its brand post-2008. Photos by Amy…
Asset Management Shift Inspires IT Transformation Among Middle Eastern Banks
While markets along the Persian Gulf have conspicuously built up financial infrastructure in recent years to attract foreign firms and capital, local banks elsewhere in the Middle East are bolstering their technological capacity to do precisely the…
Fund Managers Gear Up for AIFMD Costs, Compliance
With only six months to go until the July 22 deadline for fund managers to comply with the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive, Marina Daras looks at how the industry is gearing up in the homestretch.
Derivatives Trading Firms Weigh Audio Recording Approaches
Thanks to the latest Dodd–Frank provision in which derivatives transactions will be more closely monitored, many US traders will now have their conversations recorded. Jake Thomases investigates how that recording will be done and what will happen to the…
BofA's Bessant Embraces BYOD, Eyes Big Data's Interest vs. Impact
At a time when few institutions can countenance a wholesale technology reform program, Bank of America is storming ahead on the mobile front, in addition to undertaking a total infrastructural transformation and the goal of developing single platforms…
Bohemian Rhapsody: CIO Michal Sanak Leads Prague's RSJ with Smart Speed
RSJ, tucked on the left bank of the Vltava River in the Czech capital of Prague, has quietly become one of the world’s most active proprietary trading firms, despite its boutique size. As CIO and shareholder Michal Sanak tells Tim Bourgaize Murray, the…
License to Kill: The Complexity of Circuit Breakers
As regulators collaborate to review different concepts to protect the integrity of the US financial markets and reduce potential technology failures, Marina Daras looks at the technical challenges of implementing circuit breakers for brokers and…
Japan Eyes Further Transformation after Exchange Merger
The Japanese capital markets have undergone a series of changes over the past few years, first in response to the natural disasters that affected Asia’s regional hub, and later with the merger of the Osaka Securities Exchange and the Tokyo Stock Exchange…
Quality's Matrix
Data quality improvement efforts—even those aimed at making the process simpler—are proving to be a complex mix involving different actions for different types of data, regulations to contend with, and management issues to be grasped. Michael Shashoua…
Europe's LEI Countdown
With the legal entity identifier set to become a mandatory requirement for derivatives trades in Europe in a matter of weeks, there are concerns that some financial firms are behind in their preparations and their clients will not register for an…
Coping With EMIR Derivatives Data Requirements
A new International Swaps and Derivatives Association protocol designed to help market participants comply with the European Market Infrastructure Regulation has brought greater clarity to the procedures counterparties should follow to reconcile their…
Choosing Data Governance Battles
New regulations and pressure to reduce costs are creating greater awareness of the importance of effective data governance. However, careful planning is still needed to win support for projects and to ensure their success, writes Nicholas Hamilton
A Transparent View of Pricing
As transparency becomes a key requirement in the pricing and valuations space, financial firms have many questions for their vendors about input data, market color and pricing methodologies, writes Nicholas Hamilton
Entities and Data at Fatca's Crossroads
Heading into 2014, registration systems for compliance with the US foreign accounts tax law are ramping up, and the specifics of how Fatca will govern are starting to be filled in. Michael Shashoua surveys the remaining knowns and unknowns
Portfolio-Compression Algorithms Proving Useful in New SEF Landscape
As SEFs’ swaps execution gets off the ground, post-trade activities like portfolio-compression algorithms are proving increasingly popular as dealers and their futures commission merchant clearing arms cope with new demands, and potentially, new styles…
Network Effects: Allianz CIO Ralf Schneider on the New Hard Sell
Whether dramatically reducing Allianz’s datacenter footprint, looking for ways to better incorporate its increasingly sizeable capital-markets subsidiaries, or picking off the right talent, group CIO Ralf Schneider brings unique inspiration─and new…
Technology Aids Sharia Compliance for Islamic Finance's Rise
Islamic finance is the fastest growing segment of the global financial system. With an increasing Muslim population and a reputation for being more resilient to crisis than conventional finance, the Islamic financial sector is now facing great demand…
Roundtable: A Very Market Data Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving─the fourth Thursday in November─is when Americans traditionally give thanks for the year's harvest, stemming from the celebrations of the first European pilgrim settlers on American soil. Since our industry is blessed (or cursed) with a…