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Operational Due Diligence: Right Questions, Right Answers

July 21, 2015 By Chris Kentouris Leave a Comment

Do you have a policy to prevent cyber breaches? Do you allow employees to work remotely? Do you have a policy for valuing hard-to-price assets? Do you allow multiple parties access to your compliance system? Do you have a procedure to mitigate risk? Look familiar? These are questions drawn from questionnaires that asset-owners — pension plans, […]

Filed Under: Corporate Actions, Funds, Margining, Operations, Ops Risk, Outsourcing, Post-Trade, Regulations, Security, Slider Tagged With: Collateral, Compliance, Corporate Actions, Custodians, Fund Ops, Middle Office Ops, Ops Risk, Outsourcing, Post Trade, Security, Valuation

News to Use: EquiLend, 4sight and Russia’s NSD

April 6, 2015 By Chris Kentouris Leave a Comment

Match, Game On: Borrowers and lending agents in securities transactions executed through EquiLend, an electronic trading platform, will now be able to reconcile far more transaction details and enable lending departments to work smarter. Although EquiLend’s new matching engine is still geared to US and foreign securities, the company expects it to have greatest uptick in […]

Filed Under: Analytics, Clearing, Financing, Operations, Ops Risk, Post-Trade, Sec Lending, Settlement, Slider Tagged With: Brokerage Ops, Collateral, Compliance, Depositories, Investment Ops, Matching, Middle Office Ops, Post Trade, Settlement

ECB’s Target2-Securities: Message Transformation Morass? (Updated)

March 30, 2015 By Chris Kentouris Leave a Comment

This article has been updated to include comments from Incentage provided after its initial publication.  Question: When are ISO 20022-compliant message types not like any ISO 20022 message types that are currently in use? Answer: When they are the messages used by the European Central Bank’s Target2 Securities (T2S) platform to communicate with European securities […]

Filed Under: Clearing, Custody, Ops Risk, Settlement, Slider Tagged With: Custodians, Depositories, Ops Risk, Post Trade, T+2

SunGard’s New Derivatives Processing Utility: Panacea or Pipedream?

March 18, 2015 By Chris Kentouris Leave a Comment

SunGard’s outsourced business model for handling post-trade functions in the listed derivatives and swaps market might sound like a dream come true for futures commission merchants and given that it has already nabbed its first mega client it’s off to a great start. But whether the initiative will gain widespread industry buy-in remains to be […]

Filed Under: Clearing, Derivatives, Margining, Ops Risk, Outsourcing, Slider, Uncategorized Tagged With: Clearing, Derivatives, Middle Office Ops, Outsourcing, Swaps

Custody Network Management: The Rise of the Super Risk Manager

January 29, 2015 By Chris Kentouris Leave a Comment

Second article of our two-part series on third-party risk management. For the first article, click here. Hands-on relationship manager. System Analyst. Recruiter. Negotiator. Risk Manager. Hatchet man. Whoa! Too many job descriptions requiring far different different personalities and skills. They couldn’t possibly all be handled effectively by any single individual. These are just a some of […]

Filed Under: Compliance, Custody, Ops Risk, Post-Trade, Risk, Rules, Settlement, Slider Tagged With: AIFMD, Compliance, Custodians, Depositories, Fund Ops, Hedge Funds, Middle Office Ops, Post Trade, Regulators, UCITS

Vendor Risk Management: Financial Firms under the Gun

January 22, 2015 By Chris Kentouris Leave a Comment

First of a two-part series on third-party risk. For the second article, click here. Activities can be outsourced, liabilities can’t. Financial firms may understand the legal distinction, but when it comes to managing the risk involved with using external technology providers, they are too often falling asleep at the wheel, warn operations and IT experts. The reason: […]

Filed Under: Compliance, Data, Ops Risk, Outsourcing, Risk, Risk, Slider Tagged With: Brokerage Ops, Compliance, Fund Ops, Middle Office Ops, Ops Risk, Regulators, Reporting, SEC, Security

2015: Top Ops Goals for Surviving the Regulatory Crush

December 30, 2014 By Chris Kentouris Leave a Comment

With the beginning of 2015 just hours away, middle and back office operations specialists across the globe should count on a visit from C-level executives to set the tone for the new year. Forget about praise for all the hard work in 2014. Everyone now has to roll up their sleeves to address a host […]

Filed Under: Analytics, Compliance, Data, Ops Risk, Reporting, Risk, Risk, Rules, Slider Tagged With: Collateral, Compliance, Corporate Actions, Fund Ops, Hedge Funds, Ops Risk, Reconciliation, Regulators, Reporting, T+2

Shareholder Ballots: The Quest to Confirm a Vote

November 7, 2014 By Chris Kentouris Leave a Comment

An investor receives information about a corporate agenda and casts its votes. It happens every day of the week and most frequently from February through June when most US firms hold their annual meetings. But just because a shareholder votes, doesn’t necessarily mean there’s any way to verify the vote made its way to the issuer, […]

Filed Under: Corporate Actions, Investors, Ops Risk, Rules, Slider Tagged With: Brokerage Ops, Corporate Actions, Ops Risk, SEC

EU Settlements: More Corporate Actions Claims?

October 1, 2014 By Chris Kentouris Leave a Comment

In focusing strictly on settling domestic and cross-border trades, the new central settlement platform, Target2Securities (T2S) may end up causing unintended operational glitches and additional costs when it comes to how corporate actions of European issuers are processed. Or so fear some managers who apparently aren’t buying the assertions made by custodians and securities depositories […]

Filed Under: Clearing, Corporate Actions, Custody, Ops Risk, Post-Trade, Settlement, Slider Tagged With: Corporate Actions, Depositories, Post Trade, Settlement, T+2

Custodians Under Pressure Refocus on Middle Office Basics

September 29, 2014 By Chris Kentouris Leave a Comment

Squeezed from the top and squeezed from the bottom. It’s only natural that custodians and other asset servicing providers are feeling the pinch. A barrage of new regulations, shorter settlement cycle, new European centralized settlement platform on the one side and, on the other,  mounting client demands are forcing custodians to refocus their attentions on […]

Filed Under: Custody, Data, Funds, Ops Risk, Regulations, Reporting, Settlement, Slider Tagged With: Compliance, Custodians, FATCA, Fund Ops, Middle Office Ops, T+2

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