Forefront Fintech Digest Week in Review: January 21-24
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Broker News
Retail Trading Platform eToro Files for Us IPO and Chases $5BN Valuation
Financial Times | Ivan Levingston
Retail trading platform eToro has made confidential filings to US regulators in a significant step towards an initial public offering in New York this year that could value the business at more than $5bn. The group, whose largest market is the UK, is the latest to avoid listing in London, which has been struggling to attract and retain high-profile company listings. Chief executive and founder Yoni Assia told the Financial Times last year that a US listing would give the company access to a broader range of investors than a presence on the UK market.
Nomura to Rebuild FX Options Business Stung by Wave of Exits
Bloomberg News | William Shaw & Vassilis Karamanis
Nomura Holdings Inc. is crafting plans to rebuild its currency options business after a wave of staff exited the division in London and New York, according to people familiar with the matter. At least eight traders have left the team or gone on leave in the past year, leaving just a handful still trading across the two cities, the people said. Most of the departures were staffers who had joined since the start of 2022, they said, asking not to be identified discussing non-public information.
Goldman Sachs Wants to Create AI that Thinks and Acts Like a Seasoned Banker
Finextra | Staff
The bank has released a program called GS AI assistant to about 10,000 employees so far, with the goal that all the company’s knowledge workers will have it this year, CIO Marco Argenti told CNBC. It will initially help with tasks including summarizing or proofreading emails or translating code from one language to another. Today it can respond to queries, write emails and summarize lengthy documents, but expectations are high that future versions will exhibit agentic abilities, performing multistep tasks with little human intervention.
Corporate-Bond Trading Gets Frenzied as More Volume Goes Digital
Bloomberg News | Caleb Mutua
Credit trading volumes reached a fresh record in 2024 and could hit a new high this year, potentially resulting in lower borrowing costs for US companies. An average of $46 billion of high-grade and junk bonds changed hands every trading day last year, up 21% from 2023, according to a report by Crisil Coalition Greenwich, a provider of research and data for the financial services industry. In the first week of January, trading volume averaged $56 billion per day, nearly 25% higher than the first week of 2024, Kevin McPartland and Neha Jain wrote in the report published this week.
Jump Trading Accuses Ex-Engineer of Stealing IP for Rival Startup
Cointelegraph | Staff
Crypto firm Jump Trading has sued a former software engineer, accusing him of violating non-competition obligations and stealing intellectual property to help start a competing business. In a Jan. 21 complaint filed in a Chicago federal court, Jump claimed its former employee, Liam Heeger, violated a non-compete obligation of his contract by running a “competitive business” that “directly competes with Jump.”
Exchange, ATS & Clearing News
Opra Considers ‘Dynamic Load Balancing’ for Options Market
WatersTechnology | Emma Hilary Gould
A couple of weeks before the holidays, the Options Price Reporting Authority, the public market datafeed for US options, announced a plan to change how it distributes data. While still a proposal, technologists and market participants say it could have a big impact on how firms take in the feed. In the memo published on December 16, the Securities Industry Automation Corporation, the body in charge of running Opra’s technology and hardware, proposed “dynamic load balancing,” a newer and faster way to distribute data.
LSEG Appoints New Chief Executive of LCH Limited
The TRADE News | Wesley Bray
London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) has named Susi de Verdelon chief executive of LCH Limited, set to assume the role next month pending regulatory approvals. De Verdelon joined LCH Limited in 2017 and currently serves as group head of LCH SwapClear and Listed Rates, where she holds responsibility for driving performance, growth and resilience of the SwapClear and Listed Rates clearing services. Before joining LCH Limited, she held various sales and strategy roles in the securities division as a managing director at Goldman Sachs.
TMX Group Launches US Alternative Trading System for Equities
The TRADE News | Wesley Bray
TMX Group has launched a new US-based alternative trading system (ATS) venue, designed to create a trading environment with enhanced execution quality. Named AlphaX US, the ATS is TMX Group’s first venue expansion outside of Canada for its markets division. The ATS will trade US-listed securities only (Reg NMS), with TMX Group adding that participants will be FINRA-registered broker dealers.?
Wall Street’s Tech-Powered Bond Trades Hit Record $1 Trillion
Bloomberg News | Katie Greifeld
A tech-powered approach to bond trading that helps firms move hundreds of securities in one go has just posted its best year yet. Portfolio trades, in which large baskets of debt are bought and sold in one swoop, accounted for about 9% of total US corporate bond volume in 2024, according to data from Tradeweb Markets Inc. That’s a record level of activity, which propelled the value of all transactions using the method past $1 trillion for the first time.
Blue Ocean Technologies Expands Asia-Pacific Presence with New Office in South Korea & Appointment of SukJoon KIM
Press Release | N/A
Blue Ocean Technologies, LLC (BOT), a leading fintech company transforming U.S. overnight trading to a global experience, today announced its continued Asia-Pacific expansion with the opening of a new office in Seoul, South Korea. To lead its efforts in the North Asia Pacific (APAC) region, Blue Ocean has appointed SukJoon KIM as Vice President – Head of North APAC at Blue Ocean Technologies, LLC. This strategic move highlights Blue Ocean's commitment to fostering growth and innovation in key financial markets, further supporting investors worldwide.
Vendor News
AI Co-Pilot Offers Real-Time Portfolio Rebalancing
WatersTechnology | Wei-Shen Wong
Rebalancing and constructing investment portfolios is an arduous task. It can take analysts, portfolio managers, and advisors hours, if not days, of work to rebalance multiple portfolios and generate trades to adjust tolerance levels. One of the challenges involves something as basic as how companies are classified into sectors. Many asset managers traditionally use the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) methodology, which was developed in 1999 by S&P Dow Jones Indices and MSCI, but it’s not without pitfalls.
Ninety One Latest to Join Saphyre Platform
The TRADE News | Sophia Thomson
Ninety One has joined Saphyre’s network of financial institutions, adopting its platform to streamline the onboarding and maintenance of trading relationships with brokers and custodians, as well as manage trading agreements. Saphyre’s automated system manages the onboarding and maintenance of custody, broker trading, and buy-side accounts, while ensuring real-time synchronisation of reference data across them.
A Crypto Crossroads: The Impact of Trump 2.0 on the U.S. and Global Digital Asset Markets
VersiFi | N/A
A second Trump presidency might not just disrupt politics — it could revolutionize the U.S. cryptocurrency industry and ripple across global markets. With an ambitious vision to establish the U.S. as the “crypto capital of the planet,” Trump’s desired policies may herald a new era of regulatory clarity and market confidence. The SEC’s launch of a new crypto task force, announced by acting Chair Mark Uyeda and spearheaded by “Crypto Mom” Commissioner Hester Peirce, suggests that our leaders are wasting no time.
The Trade-Secrets Fight Between 2 of Alternative Data’s Biggest Names Is Getting Nasty
Business Insider | Bradley Saacks?
The chatter at the alternative data industry's annual shindig, the BattleFin conference at Nobu's five-star Miami Beach resort, isn't about the latest AI tool being unveiled but the legal fight between two of the field's biggest names. A trade-secrets lawsuit that had the burgeoning industry buzzing this past fall now has onlookers worried about the fallout for the entire sector and its clients thanks to recent legal moves by the Carlyle-backed Yipit and the Jefferies-owned M Science.
‘We Started Late’: Oracle Makes Case for Its Market Data Cloud Offering
WatersTechnology | Anthony Malakian
?When you talk to market data professionals and the conversation turns to cloud distribution, the three primary names they mention are Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure. IBM Cloud sometimes comes up, but more from a regtech, cybersecurity, and AI analytics perspective. ?But as banks, asset managers, and exchanges have moved more workloads to major cloud service providers (CSPs) over the last five years, there’s one notable name missing: Oracle.
Buy-Side News
Hedge-Fund Fees Eat Up Half of Clients’ Profits
Wall Street Journal | Caitlin McCabe
Hedge-fund investors often gripe about high fees. A new report puts the problem in sharp relief. Just over half of the industry’s total gross performance was eaten away by fees over the past two decades, according to LCH Investments. That compares to about 30% between 1969 and the early 2000s, said the company, which manages and advises on investments in hedge funds on behalf of investment firm Edmond de Rothschild and other investors.?
Brevan Howard Cuts 7% of Hedge Fund Trading Staff Globally
Bloomberg News | Nishant Kumar & Alex Dooler
领英推荐
Brevan Howard Asset Management has cut about 7% of its trading workforce after two of its main hedge funds underperformed relative to peers last year. The cuts affected roughly a dozen traders from Brevan Howard’s offices globally spanning New York, London and Abu Dhabi, people with knowledge of the matter said, asking not to be identified because the details are private. The firm is now left with almost 150 traders after the reduction, one of the people said. The macro trading firm eliminated the current batch of traders as part of its twice-a-year review after making similar cuts last year.
Fund Managers Innovate to Unlock Retail Access to Private Markets
Traders Magazine | Shanny Basar
Martin Small, chief financial officer of BlackRock, said creating a single managed account to provide access to private markets for financial advisors and their clients will be a “huge unlock.” Retail wealth investors allocated $2.3 trillion to private markets in 2020 and are expected to increase their allocations to $5.1 trillion by 2025 according to a Morgan Stanley/Oliver Wyman Study. BlackRock expects managed model portfolios to roughly double in assets under management over the next five years, growing into a $10 trillion business.
Goldman Sachs MD That Quit for Stripe Is Now a Hedge Fund AI Head
eFinancialCareers | Alex McMurray
A lot of people have been leaving stripe in 2025, and it's not just because of its layoffs. The fintech also had one of its marquee hires from traditional finance leave after two and half years to join a hedge fund.? Vladimir Zhukov, head of AI and machine learning at Stripe, has joined Steve Cohen's hedge fund Point72 in New York as head of technology for AI, machine learning and data. Zhukov initially joined Stripe as head of growth and core data from Goldman Sachs, where he was global head of data science and machine learning for two years. Zhukov was a part of the wave of AWS technologists who joined banking in the early 2020s.?
M&A / Investment News
Generali and BPCE Unveil JV Plans to Create Largest Asset Manager in Europe
The TRADE News | Claudia Preece
Assicurazioni Generali and BPCE have signed a Memorandum of Understanding which would see them become the leading asset management player in Europe by revenue, with more than €1.9 trillion assets under management. Specifically, the joint venture would see the firms combine their respective asset management operations – Generali Investments Holdings and Natixis Investment Managers.?
Regnology Accelerates SupTech Evolution With Acquisition of BR-AG
Press Release | N/A
Regnology, a leading software provider with a focus on regulatory reporting solutions, announced today the acquisition of BR-AG P.S.A. (BR-AG), a Polish provider of advanced RegTech and SupTech solutions. This strategic acquisition underscores Regnology's commitment to extending its Regulatory Supervision Hub (RSH) offering and strengthening its international presence for banks.
Circle Acquires Hashnote and USYC Tokenized MM Fund
Markets Media | Staff
Circle Internet Group, Inc. a global financial technology company and stablecoin market leader, announced its acquisition of Hashnote – the issuer of USYC incubated by Cumberland Labs – which according to 3rd-party analysts RWA.xyz is the largest tokenized treasury and money market fund in the world, with $1.52B deployed into USYC as of January 15, 2025. Circle intends to fully integrate USYC with USDC, offering seamless access between TMMF collateral and USDC, one of the world’s most popular stablecoins.
BlueMatrix Announces Strategic Acquisition of Street Context
Press Release | N/A
BlueMatrix, the global leader in financial services research publishing and distribution, is thrilled to announce its acquisition of Street Context, the market leader in email intelligence and analytics. Together, the two organizations will build the next generation information platform, reimagining the flow of content from creation, distribution and consumption. The combined company will integrate authoring, financial data and consumption analytics into one unified platform empowering financial institutions to deliver more targeted, engaging and data-driven communications to clients.?
Regulatory & Legal News
Trump Taps Republican Uyeda as Acting SEC Chair, White House Says
Reuters | Chris Prentice
Newly sworn-in President Donald Trump has tapped Mark Uyeda, a Republican member of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, to be acting chair of the agency, the White House said on Monday. Uyeda takes over from Gary Gensler, former President Joe Biden's hard-charging SEC chair whose ambitious agenda led him to clash with Wall Street and the crypto industry.
SEC’s ‘CryptoMom’ Tasked With Overhauling Regulator’s Digital-Assets Approach
Wall Street Journal | Dylan Tokar
The acting chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission named Republican Commissioner Hester Peirce as the head of a new cryptocurrency task force, the first step in an expected about-turn by the Wall Street regulator on crypto. Peirce, who has been dubbed CryptoMom by cryptocurrency advocates because of her friendly stance toward the industry, will oversee an effort to “draw clear regulatory lines” and walk back the approach of former SEC Chair Gary Gensler.
Wall Street Banks’ Client Trading Practices Examined by UK
Bloomberg News | Laura Noonan & William Shaw
UK financial regulators are examining how top investment banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Barclays Plc handle client trades. The Financial Conduct Authority has asked a handful of large institutions for information about their trade processing in recent months, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named as the probe isn’t public. Banks and corporate finance firms are legally required to provide the “best possible result” when they carry out trades for clients, including ensuring orders are processed at the optimum price.
Stuck in the Middle with EU: Dealers Clash Over FRTB Timing
Risk.net | Laura Noonan & William Shaw
You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Such may be the lot of the European Commission with respect to new market capital risk rules – the Fundamental Review of the Trading Book. Now that regulators in the UK have pushed back their implementation schedule, with the US probably following suit, the EC must decide how to respond in the interests of its constituent banks in the European Union – either delay in line with these jurisdictions, or stick to the schedule.
Rostin Behnam’s Unfinished Business
Risk.net | Luke Clancy & Bernard Goyder?
In his final official remarks before stepping down as chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Rostin ‘Russ’ Behnam quipped that it is only natural for outgoing stewards of the agency to “leave some business unfinished for our successors”. His legacy may well depend on how the next CFTC chair handles the array of half-finished tasks being left to them. Speaking at the Brookings Institution on January 8, Behnam professed to have completed roughly two-thirds of the agenda he had outlined for the agency in 2023.?
Crypto?& Digital Asset News
EU’s New ‘DORA’ Rules Come Into Effect: What Does It Mean for Crypto?
Cointelegraph | Helen Partz?
Cryptocurrency businesses in the European Union are subject to new cybersecurity regulations as the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) takes effect on Jan. 17. DORA impacts cybersecurity and resilience practices by virtual asset service providers (VASP) in the region. To comply with DORA, financial entities in the EU are required to have a comprehensive register of their contractual arrangements with third-party IT service providers to ensure safe infrastructure and risk management.
Bank of America CEO Says Financial Industry Will Jump Into Crypto Payments if Regulators Allow It
CNBC | Hugh Son
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said Tuesday that the U.S. banking industry will embrace cryptocurrencies for payments if regulators allow it. The head of the second-largest U.S. bank by assets was asked by CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin about how the industry’s approach to crypto could change given President Donald Trump’s enthusiasm for digital currencies. “If the rules come in and make it a real thing that you can actually do business with, you’ll find that the banking system will come in hard on the transactional side of it,” Moynihan said in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Coinbase Promises Infrastructure Improvements to Expedite Solana Deposits and Withdrawals
The Block | James Hunt
Crypto exchange giant Coinbase has sought to address concerns over significant delays in processing Solana transactions, with some users reporting wait times of several hours. Multiple users have taken to X in recent days, reporting withdrawal delays from their Coinbase accounts to their Solana wallets of 10 hours or more, with many of those attempts ultimately failing. The ongoing issue has led some users to allege Coinbase has a conflict of interest as the Ethereum Layer 2 network Base it incubated is a competitor to Solana.?
Crypto.com to Launch US Institutional Crypto Investing Platform
Cointelegraph | Christopher Tepedino?
Crypto.com has announced the launch of an institutional trading platform that will supplement its crypto retail trading mobile application. According to a Jan. 21 announcement, the new platform will feature over 300 trading pairs and enable advanced trading strategies for institutional firms, marking the company’s further expansion into Wall Street. The crypto exchange entered the US institutional custody market in December 2024, offering services to high-net-worth residents of certain states.
Crypto’s Richest Man Turns VC Firm Into Giant Family Office
Bloomberg News | Muyao Shen, Suvashree Ghosh & Ryan Weeks
Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, a few months out of prison and worth $70 billion thanks to the relentless crypto rally, is turning the former venture capital arm of his Binance Holdings Ltd. into a family office. Binance Labs, which oversees about $10 billion of crypto-related assets, will be renamed YZi Labs, according to a statement on Thursday. Zhao brought back Ella Zhang, who helped set up Binance Labs in 2018 and left two years later, to run the outfit. YZi Labs will also manage the wealth of Binance co-founder Yi He, with whom Zhao has three children.
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