Forefront Fintech Digest Week in Review: May 20 – 24
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Broker News
Jamie Dimon Hints He Is Preparing to Retire as CEO of JPMorgan Chase
Wall Street Journal | Alexander Saeedy
Jamie Dimon acknowledged that he will likely be leaving his role as chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase in fewer than five years. In a Q&A session with analysts at the bank’s annual investor day Monday, Dimon said the timetable for his departure has changed from his longterm boilerplate response to questions of his tenure. “The timetable isn’t five years anymore,” Dimon said. He didn’t provide more detail about when he plans to leave.
Jane Street Avoids Disclosing Secrets to Millennium in Dispute
Bloomberg News | Ava Benny-Morrison
Jane Street Group was spared for now from having to share trade secrets with former traders it sued after they left for a rival firm. US District Judge Paul Engelmayer on Thursday said Jane Street does not need to share a court-ordered disclosure with former traders Douglas Schadewald and Daniel Spottiswood and Millennium Management. Instead, the firm can temporarily make it available only to the court and outside lawyers.
Interactive Brokers Joins Cboe Europe Derivatives as New Trading Participant
The TRADE News | Wesley Bray
Cboe Europe Derivatives has welcomed Interactive Brokers as a participant, providing its clients with access to CEDX’s equity index derivatives and equity options this quarter. Interactive Brokers has become a direct trading participant on CEDX and a direct clearing participant for equity derivatives on Cboe’s pan-European clearing house and CEDX’s clearing provider, Cboe Clear Europe.
Exchange, ATS & Clearing News
Nasdaq to Market New Options Strike Listing Tech to Other Exchanges
WatersTechnology | Emma Hilary Gould
Last year, Nasdaq began using predictive AI in its US options markets, and now it is looking to sell that tech to others. The exchange operator is in talks with clients to determine if the product, which uses predictive AI to estimate whether an options strike is likely to trade or not, could be used by and sold to other exchanges as part of its market technology business.?
The Meme-Stock Craze Pushed Off-Exchange Trading to a Record High
Wall Street Journal | Alexander Osipovich?
Last week’s revival of investor enthusiasm for GameStop and other meme stocks triggered a flurry of trading outside of public stock exchanges. A record 51.9% of shares traded on Thursday changed hands on off-exchange trading venues, where many of the buy and sell orders submitted by individual investors are executed, according to data from Rosenblatt Securities. The last such record was set on Feb. 9, 2021, during the original meme-stock craze, according to Rosenblatt.
CME Expands Fixed Income Offerings
Markets Media | Staff
CME Group, the world’s leading derivatives marketplace, announced that it will continue its expansion into the fixed income markets by launching repo on corporate bonds and mortgage-backed securities (MBS) on BrokerTec Quote, its dealer-to-client (D2C) request-for-quote (RFQ) trading platform. U.S. corporate bonds began trading on May 20, 2024, with the remaining products live by the end of June. Additionally, CME Group’s U.S. credit futures will begin trading on June 17, 2024.
Vendor News
JonesTrading Expands Relationship with LiquidityBook; Rolls Out LBX Post-Trade Hub?
Press Release | N/A
LiquidityBook, a leading provider of cloud-native buy- and sell-side trading solutions, announced today that JonesTrading has moved its firmwide middle office operations onto LiquidityBook’s LBX Post-Trade Hub, a suite of modular, cloud-native solutions for sell-side middle office operations. The two firms collaborated closely to go live in 3 months, an aggressive and necessary implementation timeline to retire a legacy solution that was in place for nearly 2 decades.
RBC Joins Capital Markets Gateway's Global Underwriting Network as Investor and Client
Press Release | N/A
Capital Markets Gateway (CMG), a fintech firm modernizing the equity capital markets, today announced that the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) has joined its global underwriter network as both an investor and a client. CMG continues to expand this industry-led global initiative, with RBC joining existing partners including Bank of America, Barclays, Citi, Fidelity Investments, Franklin Templeton, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley.?
DriveWealth Announces New Executive Hires Across Product and Operations Teams
Markets Media | Staff
DriveWealth, a leading financial technology platform providing Brokerage-as-a-Service, announced today the hiring of two new executives: Kyla Murphy, as Chief Product Officer and Lauren Veisz as Head of Operations. In their respective roles, Murphy and Veisz will help to further expand DriveWealth’s footprint in global markets, develop deeper relationships with current and potential partners, and build out the company’s product roadmap.
Buy-Side News
Greenlight Capital’s Clash With an Ex-Employee Has Captivated the Hedge-Fund World
Financial News | Louis Gross
A clash between Greenlight Capital and one of its former employees has captivated the hedge-fund world. James Fishback, 29, says he worked as “head of macro” at the New York hedge fund. Greenlight Capital says that position never existed.?
Eisler Traders Exit as Firm Pares Emerging-Market Rates Bets
Bloomberg News | William Shaw & Donal Griffin
Eisler Capital, the $4 billion multi-strategy hedge fund, has largely pulled back from wagering on emerging-markets interest rates after traders lost money and differed on approach with a top deputy of founder Edward Eisler. Portfolio managers including Ying Zhang, Devvrat Tripathi and Johan Kurtz left in recent months, according to people familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity as the details aren’t public. Sirushe Hewazy, one of the most senior emerging-markets traders at London-based Eisler, remains with the fund but isn’t currently trading, the people said.
领英推荐
T+1 Triggers an FX Tech Evolution, Not Revolution for Asset Managers
TabbFORUM | Scott Gold (BidFX)
With less than ten days to go until the shortening of the settlement cycle for U.S equities and bonds (T+1), there is an undeniable urgency to dot the I’s and cross the T’s on final preparations. Asset managers outside the U.S find themselves at the forefront of significant upheaval, grappling with a myriad of time zone driven challenges. What’s particularly interesting is that the mood of market participants across continents reveals a common thread of apprehension, underscored by the absence of a perfect solution.?
M&A / Investment News
Regional Lender SouthState to Buy Independent Bank for About $2 Bln
Reuters | Staff
Regional lender SouthState Corp will buy peer Independent Bank in an all-stock deal valued at about $2 billion, the companies said on Monday. As part of the deal, Independent Bank shareholders will receive 0.60 shares of SouthState common stock. The deal values Independent Bank at $48.51 per share, which represents a 10.4% premium to the stock's last close.
Crypto Firm VersiFi, Co-Led by Former Genesis Exec, Acquires Trading Tech Startup Ather Digital
The Block | Yogita Khatri
VersiFi, a crypto trading and lending firm co-led by a former Genesis executive, has acquired Ather Digital, a crypto trading technology startup, for an undisclosed sum. The deal will help VersiFi add direct market access, algorithmic trading and smart order routing to its platform, the firm said Thursday. The deal terms were undisclosed, but VersiFi founder and co-CEO Sameer Shalaby told The Block that it was an "all-stock" deal in which all Ather Digital shareholders received shares in VersiFi.
Regulatory & Legal News
Russian Court Seizes €700MN Assets From UniCredit, Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank
Financial Times | Anastasia Stognei, Silvia Sciorilli Borrelli & Joshua Franklin?
A St Petersburg court has seized over €700mn of assets belonging to three western banks — UniCredit, Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank — according to court documents. The seizure is one of the biggest moves against western lenders since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine prompted most international lenders to withdraw or wind down their businesses in Russia. It comes after the European Central Bank told Eurozone lenders with operations in the country to speed up their exit plans.
US House Passes Market Structure Bill to Regulate the Crypto Industry
The Block | Sarah Wynn
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a crypto market structure bill that aims to regulate the industry at large, marking the first time comprehensive crypto legislation has been voted on in the full House. The House voted 279 to 136 on Wednesday to pass the Republican-led Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act, also known as FIT21. Seventy-one Democrats voted in support of the bill, including former Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California.?
JPMorgan Poised to Pay $100 Million Over CFTC Trade Reporting Violations, Source Says
Reuters | Chris Prentice & Nupur Anand
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is expected as soon as Wednesday to announce a $100 million settlement with JPMorgan Chase & Co opens new tab over trade reporting lapses, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The same source said that the bank has also agreed to admit as part of that deal that it broke the agency's rules. That admission, which has not previously been reported, would be a win for the CFTC which has been pushing for companies to assume more accountability for wrongdoing.
Crypto?& Digital Asset News
US Paves Way for Ether ETFs in Test of Crypto Demand Beyond Bitcoin
Bloomberg News | Emily Graffeo & Lydia Beyoud
The crypto industry is closer to another landmark after the Securities and Exchange Commission paved the way for the eventual launch of the first US exchange-traded funds investing directly in the Ether token. In a step deemed unlikely as recently as last week, the SEC signed off Thursday on a proposal by venues run by Cboe Global Markets Inc., Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange to list products tied to the second-biggest digital asset.
Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein Steps Down
Wall Street Journal | Vicky Ge Huang
Grayscale Investments Chief Executive Michael Sonnenshein has stepped down, after a decadelong career helping build the company into the world’s largest crypto asset manager. Peter Mintzberg, who currently serves as the global head of strategy for Goldman Sachs’s asset and wealth management division, will become Grayscale’s CEO in August, the company said. Mintzberg, whose 20-year Wall Street career spans BlackRock, OppenheimerFunds and Invesco, will also join Grayscale’s board at that time.?
Uniswap Labs Denies Crypto Tokens Are Securities in SEC Response
Bloomberg News | Muyao Shen
Uniswap Labs, the creator of the largest decentralized trading platform on Ethereum, said a potential enforcement action against it by the US Securities and Exchange Commission has no merit because crypto tokens are not securities, but rather are simply a form of files like PDFs. The New York-based startup on Tuesday disputed the allegation that it operates an unregistered exchange and broker dealer.?
FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried Being Transferred to New Prison
Wall Street Journal | Alexander Osipovich
Federal officials began the process of transferring Sam Bankman-Fried to a new prison early Wednesday, overriding his wish to stay in New York while helping to prepare his appeal, according to a spokesman for the jailed FTX founder. The spokesman said he couldn’t confirm Bankman-Fried’s destination, but people familiar with the matter said the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange was told in recent days that he would be moved to a federal correctional facility in Mendota, Calif.