US and European sanctions aside, the Russian securities depository and regulators are staying on track toward their goal of turning Moscow into a major financial center through two badly needed operational reforms — the automated processing of corporate actions and electronic proxy votes for annual meetings in Russian corporations. In line with the global trend toward using ISO-compliant messages for […]
DTCC’s Institutional Tri-party Repo Clearing: Great Idea…Maybe
A recent proposal by the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. to serve as the middleman for a large chunk of the institutional tri-party repo market through its subsidiary Fixed Income Clearing Corp. might sound like a great way to reduce counterparty risk and the potential for fire sale of collateral, but with so few details unveiled […]
Growing Global Collateral Pool: Will Fund Managers Profit?
With collateral potentially becoming a scarce resource over the next few years, securities depositories are quickly stepping up to the plate to ease access, but it remains uncertain just how much their new services will help the most needy: fund managers. The announcement of the alliance between two mega market infrastructures — international securities depository Euroclear in […]
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 […]
Unified Managed Accounts: MMI Resurrects the Model Messaging Hub
Asset managers can start looking forward to an industry-standard way to communicate with sponsors and overlay management of unified managed accounts (UMAs). Resurrecting the hub concept announced with much fanfare by the DTCC in 2011 and quietly abandoned by the US infrastructure giant the next year, a replacement is in the works through a collaboration between the Money Management […]
Fund Managers: Addressing the Regulatory Data Quagmire (Updated)
Dodd-Frank. EMIR. FATCA. AIFMD. Solvency II. The reporting obligations of fund managers just keep growing. The snowballing burden — with new regulations and reporting rules popping up at an alarming pace — is forcing many to step back from their usual resigned willingness to learn and follow one regulatory rule after another. The emerging alternative: looking at the bigger picture of […]
Collateral Management: Is Access Really King?
When it comes to managing collateral, fund managers can just forget about all the doomsday talk of a shortfall. There is enough to go around — and to fulfill a multitude of regulatory requirements — if only it could be easier to access it. Or so says a new study supported by the US Depository […]
Mind the Gap: Brokers Address US-European Settlement Discrepancy
Europe’s move to a two-day settlement cycle in October will cause a lot more stress for broker-dealers than just trying to communicate with their fund managers more quickly. The reason: their clients among US asset managers may have difficulty funding more of their purchases of European securities in at least ten European markets come October 6. From that […]
Automating Corporate Actions: Four Ways to Generate Successful ROI
Automating the handling of corporate actions should be a given, considering the financial risk fund managers, broker-dealers and banks face if they make just one mistake. Apparently that’s not necessarily so. The reason: justifying the expense to C-level management isn’t as easy as it sounds, despite the need for automation being greater than ever before. […]
DTCC’s Issuer Chills: Unfreezing Sparks Debate
Chills typically precede colds or fevers, which can be treated through medication. But when the chills are related to cancellation of settlement and other services by the US market infrastructure Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC), they can be as deadly as the Bubonic plague, say critics, who are now battling the efforts of its […]