Forefront Fintech Digest Week in Review: July 17-21
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Broker News
Deutsche Bank Promotes Atkinson To Interim UK CEO After Lee Exit
Financial News | Paul Clarke
Deutsche Bank has promoted its chief operating officer in the UK and Ireland to interim chief executive for the countries following Tiina Lee's exit to Citigroup. Nicola Atkinson, who has worked at the German lender since 2005, will take on the CEO position for the UK and Ireland on an interim basis, according to a person familiar with the matter. Atkinson was latterly COO for the UK and Ireland, having taken the role in 2018 after stints in corporate finance and regulatory relationship management at Deutsche Bank.
BNY Mellon Invests In LiquidityDirect, Outsourcing Trading
Traders Magazine | Shanny Basar
This year BNY Mellon has launched an outsourced trading service and expanded LiquidityDirect, its short-term investment platform, to allow clients to do more within the firm’s ecosystem. Laide Majiyagbe, head of financing and liquidity at BNY Mellon, explained that the firm has about $1.3 trillion of liquidity that it helps clients put to work in everything from money market funds, deposits and repo, and only about 20% is on its balance sheet.
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Market Maker Citadel Set To Accelerate Credit Trading Transformation
Financial Times | Hudson Lockett, Harriet Clarfelt & Nikou Asgari
Citadel Securities’ entry into America’s $10tn corporate bond market looks set to turbo charge an electronic trading revolution in an asset class once dominated by large banks and telephone transactions, say investors and industry executives. Ken Griffin’s high-frequency market-making firm, which acts as an intermediary between buyers and sellers of assets and handles $463bn in trades each day, started offering US investment-grade bond trading to clients in June. The move points to the changes taking place in the analogue corporate debt market, which is decades behind equities in embracing electronic trading.
Liquidnet Boosts Algo Team With Ex-Goldman Sachs Trader Mark Warren
Best Execution | Alex Pugh
Liquidnet has hired Mark Warren as a new senior equity sales trader. Prior to Liquidnet, Warren was at Goldman Sachs, which he joined in June 2018 as an associate in electronic sales trading before being promoted to vice president of electronic trading. Before Goldman Sachs, Warren worked for Cannacord Genuinity for three years as an electronic sales trader, prior to which he spent seven years in trade support for various firms including Collins Stewart and J M Finn & Co.
Exchange, ATS & Clearing News
Saudi Exchange Makes Push Into Algo and High Frequency Trading
The TRADE News | Claudia Preece
Since the beginning of the year, the Saudi Exchange has gone live with a range of developments for its high frequency trading (HFT) and algo trading clients, claiming to have seen notable growth in its order flow following the push. Order flow originated from the exchange’s algo and HFT clients has grown from around 20% last year to near 30% as of this week, following the implementation of services including co-location facilities, drop copy and cancel-on-disconnect services, The TRADE understands.
HSBC Executes First International SLB With Dubai Clear
Markets Media | Staff
Dubai Financial Market (DFM) announced that HSBC has successfully executed the first international Securities Lending and Borrowing (SLB) transaction on the exchange, the latest step in the continued evolution and expansion of Dubai’s capital markets. Providing end-to-end, over-the-counter, SLB transactions is a milestone development for DFM, enabling investors to more effectively hedge portfolios or take new positions to derive additional opportunities on traded securities.?
Tradeweb Treads Fine Line as API Trend Brings Challenges
Risk.net | Lukas Becker & Joe Parsons
A growing number of buy-side firms are taking more direct control over their execution of rates products on Tradeweb without visiting the platform itself. It’s a trend that is seen by some as the first step on a slippery slope – albeit a small step, and a long slope – that leads to irrelevance. Every fixed income trading venue’s fear is that – like an online retailer – customers will eventually use an Amazon-style aggregator to access their liquidity and compare prices, rather than visiting the various shops individually. In this imagined future, enabled via widespread trading through application programming interfaces (APIs), the venues lose the direct relationship with their customers, and have less ability to set and collect fees.
Vendor News
Orchestrade And Rebar Systems Partner To Offer A Fully Integrated Front-To-Back Cross Asset Trading Platform
Benzinga | Staff
Rebar Systems, a trusted trading platform solutions provider to hedge funds and asset managers; and Orchestrade, the capital markets trading, operations, and risk technology firm, today announced a partnership to provide a fully integrated offering of Rebar's order management and execution platform (ROME?) with Orchestrade's market leading cross asset front-to-back trading and risk portfolio management system.
Axioma Partners With EDS To Deliver Factor Risk Models for Hedge Funds
Hedgeweek | Staff
Axioma, Qontigo’s analytics business and a global provider of factor risk models, portfolio construction tools, and enterprise risk solutions, has expanded its partnership with Equity Data Science (EDS), to provide hedge funds and asset managers with access to its Equity Factor Risk Model Suite.?The partnership comes as EDS says its hedge fund and asset manager clients are seeking to enhance risk management practices amid fast-moving and increasingly complex market conditions.?
Broadridge Names Mike Sleightholme As President of Broadridge International
A-Team Insight | Staff
Broadridge Financial Solutions has appointed Mike Sleightholme as president of Broadridge International. Sleightholme, who is based in London, will be responsible for delivering the company’s capital markets technology and data solutions throughout the EMEA and Asia Pacific regions. Sleightholme first joined Broadridge in 2022 as president of its Asset Management Solutions business where he was responsible for driving growth, the strategic execution of client and market-focused solutions, and world-class service delivery.?
Buy-Side News
Quant Funds Move Into Unfettered Pink Sheet Stock Trading
Financial Times | Nicholas Megaw & Madison Darbyshire
Computer-driven investment firms are increasingly trading over-the-counter US stocks, attempting to bring modern algorithmic strategies to a realm traditionally seen as one of the riskiest corners of equity investing. So-called quant hedge funds and proprietary traders are being drawn towards this corner of the market by a combination of improved liquidity and the increasing difficulty they face making money in the large-cap markets they have previously focus on, say investors, market makers and exchange executives.
Quant Powerhouse Two Sigma Moves To Hire Flesh-and-Blood Traders
Bloomberg News | Nishant Kumar
Two Sigma Investments, the quant hedge-fund giant known for using computer-driven algorithms to make money, is for the first time exploring ways to add traders who rely on their human judgment to make money as the $60 billion investing firm looks to diversify its strategies. New York-based Two Sigma, which uses machine learning and big data to make systematic trades, has hired some staff and is interviewing traders and researchers, according to people familiar with the matter.?
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领英推荐
AXA IM Individual Joins Bluebay As Credit Trader Departs For Norges Bank Investment Management
The TRADE News | Annabel Smith
An investment-grade credit trader from RBC BlueBay Asset Management has left the firm to join Norges Bank Investment Management, The TRADE can reveal. Christopher Lemmo left BlueBay, part of RBC Global Asset Management, in April this year after almost 13 years at the fixed income focused asset manager. He has been appointed senior trader at Norges Bank Investment Management, based in New York. Norges Bank Investment Management confirmed his appointment.
Sequoia Shakes Up VC Team, Sheds Two Crypto Investors
Bloomberg News | Sarah McBride
Sequoia Capital, one of the world’s most prominent venture capital firms, now looks very different than it did just a year ago – following a turbulent period of market upheaval, a breakup and at least five investor departures. Longtime partner Michael Moritz is leaving the venture firm to focus on Sequoia Heritage, a wealth management business he helped start, Sequoia said Wednesday. Another senior partner, Mike Vernal, is also leaving, along with Michelle Fradin, one of the firm’s investors behind FTX, and partners Kais Khimji and Daniel Chen.
M&A / Investment News
Binance Labs Invests $10 Million in Cross-Chain DeFi Lender Radiant Capital
The Block | James Hunt
Binance Labs, the venture capital arm of crypto exchange Binance, has invested $10 million in cross-chain lending and borrowing protocol Radiant Capital. The funding round is part of Binance Labs’ “commitment to supporting innovative projects that will lead the next era of DeFi in a chain-agnostic and user-centric manner,” according to a statement. Radiant is built on top of LayerZero, an interoperability protocol enabling multiple blockchains to communicate with each other. LayerZero developer LayerZero Labs is also part of Binance Labs’ portfolio.?
Intercontinental Exchange And Black Knight Announce Agreement To Sell Black Knight’s Optimal Blue Business To Constellation Software Inc.
Press Release | N/A
Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. and Black Knight, Inc. today announced that, in connection with their previously announced merger agreement for ICE’s acquisition of Black Knight, they have agreed to sell Black Knight’s Optimal Blue business to a subsidiary of Constellation Software Inc. Under terms of the divestiture agreement, Constellation will acquire Black Knight’s Optimal Blue business for $700 million.?
HighVista’s Deal With Abrdn Illustrates the Current Moment in Asset Management
Institutional Investor | Julie Segal
HighVista Strategies is buying the U.S. private markets business of abrdn — a deal that will almost double the size of the Boston-based alternative investment manager. HighVista, which currently has $4.8 billion in assets under management, expects to gain $4 billion in private equity and venture capital assets in the acquisition, which includes a 30-person team. The transaction will close later this year. André Perold, co-founder and CIO of HighVista Strategies, said he and his fellow partners first met the abrdn team, which specializes in the middle market, more than five years ago.?
Regulatory & Legal News
Clients Versus Compliance: Banks Hung Up Over WhatsApp Fines
WatersTechnology | Natacha Maurin
For busy bankers, there’s always a temptation to send one more message from their mobile before a flight takes off, even when the cabin crew are telling them to switch to airplane mode. Now it seems operational risk managers are fighting against the same instincts on the trading floor. But the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is a cabin crew with a difference—they can fine you for non-compliance. Together with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the SEC dished out fines of more than $1 billion in 2022 over the misuse of personal messaging services, and further enforcement actions followed in 2023.
The SEC Leaves Wall Street Research In A Jam
Barron's | Bill Alpert
As of this month, many stock analysts might find themselves outlaws. For five years, American regulators shielded Wall Street’s research from a European rule that bans money managers from paying for research through trading commissions—a long-established payment arrangement known as “soft dollars.” On July 3, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission let that protection lapse. Brokers say the resulting conflict between U.S. and European laws leaves them with the choice of halting research or risking sanctions.?
Meeting Gensler’s Demands — How One Crypto Firm Took The ‘Long Complicated Route’ To Register With The SEC
DL News | Joanna Wright
Three years. Countless meetings. Legal fees. Filings. More meetings. And a fortuitous acquisition. That’s what it took for Carlos Domingo to comply with Gary Gensler’s wishes. And he’s still not done. Domingo, the CEO of Securitize Inc., is one of the few blockchain industry executives to register his company with the US Securities and Exchange Commission and hew to the demand that has driven the most intense regulatory crackdown in the sector’s history.
Crypto & Digital Asset News
FTX Sues Bankman-Fried, Associates Over $1 Billion in Bad Deals
Bloomberg News | Steven Church, Jonathan Randles & Jeremy Hill
Bankrupt FTX Trading Ltd. will try to claw back millions of dollars in cash and unwind more than $1 billion in questionable transactions as part of a new lawsuit filed against company founder and alleged fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried and his top lieutenants. The suit targets Bankman-Fried, FTX co-founder Gary Wang, who was also the chief technology officer; Nishad Singh, the former director of engineering; and Caroline Ellison, who was the co-chief executive of Alameda Research LLC, a key FTX unit. They are accused of various fraudulent transfers that benefited them personally, but did nothing for FTX.
Binance Lays Off Over 1,000 Employees
Wall Street Journal | Patricia Kowsmann & Caitlin Ostroff
Binance, the giant crypto exchange, is cutting a big chunk of its workforce during a federal crackdown in the U.S. Over 1,000 people have been fired in recent weeks, according to a person familiar with the moves. The exercise, which is continuing, could result in Binance losing more than a third of its staff, the person said. More employees were laid off this week, according to former employees, who said customer-service workers were heavily affected. The cuts were global, including about three dozen customer-service employees in India. The Wall Street Journal has reported layoffs and resignations were taking place, including in the U.S., but the scope of the cuts weren’t known.?
Nasdaq Halts Plan to Launch Crypto-Custodian Business in US
Bloomberg News | Yueqi Yang & Katherine Doherty
Nasdaq Inc. became the latest mainstream financial firm to take a step back from digital assets, aborting its launch of a custodian business in the US due to the shifting business and regulatory environment. The exchange operator is also halting its efforts to pursue a license related to the business but will continue to build out its technology to handle crypto for clients. “We remain committed to supporting the evolution of the digital asset ecosystem in a variety of ways,” including partnerships with potential ETF issuers, Adena Friedman, Nasdaq’s chief executive officer, said on the second-quarter earnings call on Wednesday.
Tokenize Everything: Institutions Bet That Crypto’s Future Lies In The Real World
CoinDesk | Jeff Wilser
Think of the biggest knocks on crypto: Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin aren’t “real,” because they’re not backed by hard assets in the real world; They’re highly speculative, and the yo-yoing prices can doom unsophisticated investors; often they’re even ridiculous, with meme-coins and cartoon apes selling for millions. You don’t have to agree with these critiques. (I don’t, at least not fully.) But the merits of these arguments are irrelevant. Like it or not, these are some of the reasons that most banks, financial institutions, governments, and billions of “normies” have still not bought a lick of crypto.?
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Realtor Associate @ Next Trend Realty LLC | HAR REALTOR, IRS Tax Preparer
1 年Thanks for sharing.