ISIN — the 12-digit alphanumeric international securities identification code and longstanding standard for identifying securities for cross-border trading and post-trade processing — is facing an unlikely competitor, a proprietary code designed by commercial data giant Bloomberg. The 27-member board of directors of the Object Management Group (OMG), an international organization concerned with data integration standards, is set to […]
DTCC Puts Defrosting of Issuer Chills on Hold: Now What?
By all appearances, it’s back to square one for US corporate issuers when it comes to dealing with the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation and the manner in which it imposes minor or more severe restrictions on a newly public company accessing some or all of its services. Any possible future changes in DTCC’s adjudication of so-called […]
FIXing Post-Trade Matching: Made to Order
“If it ain’t broken don’t fix it” is a common sentiment in the financial industry. But to afficionados of the FIX message protocol, the process of matching trade details is broken, so it needs solutions Providers of order management systems think they are just the right folks to fix the problem — the so-called monopoly enjoyed by post-trade communications provider […]
Asia-Pacific Post-Trade Operations: “Automation is Critical”
While Asia-Pacific is often touted as fertile ground for expansion by fund managers, broker-dealers and their asset-servicing providers, a range of bottlenecks remain in how trade details are acknowledged before settlement. In fact, Asia-Pac fund managers tell FinOps Report, newcomers may be surprised by additional operational and staffing costs to cleanup trades that don’t settle on […]
AIFMD and UCITS V: Custodians Under the Gun to Monitor Subcustodians
Global custodians always claimed to be selective about who they did business with. After all, billions if not trillions of dollars worth of client assets are at stake. Well now they have to be even more cautious about who they have selected as their subcustodians or local agent banks across the globe, and many are […]
Plan Sponsors: Take Charge of Forex Trading Costs
Watch the watchers. That’s the mantra of a growing number asset owners, who are depending on fund managers and custodians to protect their financial interests. These asset owners are now adopting — or should be adopting — a “trust but verify” philosophy when it comes to choosing who executes and how their foreign exchange transactions should be […]
European Regulators Tell Market: Failure Not an Option
Failing to settle or even match the details of European securities trades on time could become a lot more expensive and reputationally risky for banks, broker-dealers, and their fund manager customers, if European regulators have their way. Just how much more they will have to spend beyond the hefty internal administrative costs, and current fines […]
FIXing the Post-Trade Communications Process
Reducing time, risk and cost. That’s the mantra the FIX Trading Community promoted at an event it hosted in New York last week when recommending its message tags and workflow be used for locally matching post-trade instructions in all asset-classes. It’s also the beginning of a battle to win the hearts and minds of fund managers […]