Feature
Nordic Markets' Robot Wars
While the rest of Europe continues to suffer from the ongoing financial crisis, the Nordic markets have been a relative safe haven, benefiting from technological savvy to enjoy steady growth. By Steve Dew-Jones
Building Blocks The Evolving State of Datacenters
While datacenters are an accepted part of the technology landscape, they’re remarkably inflexible and expensive by nature. But new technologies such as modular datacenters and financial extranets are beginning to uproot the traditional buy-and-build…
Cerberus CIO Richard Alexander's A-Team
After four-plus years at Cerberus Capital Management, Richard Alexander has spearheaded projects to tap into the cloud, create a data warehouse, and build a new datacenter. And that’s just the beginning. By Anthony Malakian with photos by Amy Fletcher
Securities Finance's Eastern Promise
Facing lopsided markets in North America and Europe, providers of securities finance tools—whether lending or repurchase agreements—are looking to Asia. The process is not for the impatient, but if firms can get the technology right, moves being made now…
Swaps Overhaul: Ready or Not, Here It comes
A major set of deadlines for the swaps industry passed on October 12. More will be coming soon. However, none seems to have given market participants the jolt they need to have the right platforms in place. By Jake Thomases
High-Frequency Trading: Handle with Care
Steve Dew-Jones unearths disquiet among market participants, following the European Parliament’s unanimous vote in favor of European Commission proposals to restrict the practice of high-frequency trading.
Year of the Dragon: China Opens Up
As Europe wanes, China is on the rise. Through joint ventures with big-name banks, regulatory relaxation and the expansion of technology, the sleeping giant of the East is awake and opening up to foreign and domestic trade finance, but its technology…
Buy-Side Performance and Attribution: How Soon Is Now?
At one point during the recent roundtable discussion in New York, Waters editor Victor Anderson asked panelists what the biggest obstacles are facing asset managers in terms of their ability to produce detailed and frequent performance reports. Based on…
Does One Data Silo Fit All?
Centralization of data across silos has moved to the forefront of risk management efforts in financial services. Michael Shashoua explores the parts data timeliness, transparency and standards are playing in organizing and centralizing data
Insights Into Prices
During an Inside Reference Data webcast on September 11, 2012 about prices and valuations, industry experts explained the changes they are making to achieve new levels of transparency and how industry developments are impacting them, writes Nicholas…
A Down-to-Earth View Of the Cloud
Speakers at an Inside Reference Data webcast on October 2, 2012 highlighted the many benefits of cloud technology, but also emphasized a number of areas of concern that vendors are focused on overcoming, writes Nicholas Hamilton
Getting To Grips With Semantics
Businesses in a number of industries are seeing the benefits of using semantic technology for data management. Nicholas Hamilton asks where this approach may fit in the financial services sector and what advantages firms can expect to see
Divining Downstream Data Flows
Data managers are considering how to best and most accurately handle distribution of varied types of reference data. Michael Shashoua heard from financial firms and their providers on the challenges they are seeing and what course they are taking
Infrastructure Change Is Good
Upgrading legacy systems is a necessity for buy-side and sell-side firms if they are to maximize revenues and keep up with regulations.
Case-Based Reasoning: Drilling Deeper
After a summer of monumental systems errors, the din of voices begging for imaginative reform in IT risk is steadily growing. Tim Bourgaize Murray searches the frontier of artificial intelligence and infrastructure-dependent industries like energy for…
Janus Capital's George Batejan: The Mechanical Engineer
How many IT executives can say they’ve been behind the wheel of a car at 178 mph? Janus Capital’s head of technology and operations can. And yet, his feats behind the wheel and his strength in the boardroom might have more in common than you think. By…
Corporate Bonds' Brave New World
With the market structure for corporate bonds in flux, Tim Bourgaize Murray finds that good ideas abound, and greater automation may bring some empowerment to the buy side. But in this fragmented market, even technology can’t completely quell the…
Target2-Securities: Give and Take
Work on the Target2-Securities project, the pan-European settlement platform developed by the European Central Bank, continues to gather pace ahead of its 2015 launch date. What will it mean for central securities depositories, which are outsourcing…
60 Seconds with ...
Justin Wheatley, CEO, StatPro
Conquering Form PF
Form PF, requiring US funds managing at least $150 million to submit an unprecedented amount of data to the SEC, came into effect in 2010 as part of Dodd–Frank, and the deadlines are now starting to kick in.
The Big Data Quality Question
As financial firms seek to harness the potential of big data, they are adopting technological and strategic approaches to ensure the data quality measures up. Nicholas Hamilton surveys the ways in which risk, regulatory and data management concerns come…
The Onboarding Conundrum
Client onboarding is often a cumbersome process, but market practitioners believe it could be streamlined if firms enable their customers to upload and maintain their own data. The catch, Nicholas Hamilton finds, is that strict controls could be needed…
Transparent Demands
Data management strategies and provider choices are a prime concern for firms trying to achieve transparency in their pricing data, at regulators’ urging. Michael Shashoua looks for where the work will need to occur in the industry
The Risk FIX: Technologists Eye FPL Risk Guidelines
In June, FIX Protocol Ltd. released a new batch of risk-control guidelines for futures and options contracts executed via algorithms and direct market access, notably setting out a framework for pre-order acceptance checks. Tim Bourgaize Murray finds…