Forefront Fintech Digest Week in Review: October 21 - October 25

Forefront Fintech Digest Week in Review: October 21 - October 25

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Broker News


Piper Sandler Builds Out Fixed Income Team With Brian Vescio Hire

The DESK | Alex Pugh

Investment bank Piper Sandler has appointed Brian Vescio as managing director and head of structured products trading to the firm’s fixed income team. He will be based in New York. Vescio joins the firm from StoneX Group, where he was a managing director and head of structured credit. Prior to that, he led non-agency mortgage and asset backed securities at Sandler O’Neill and then Piper Sandler after the merger. Vescio was also previously the head of non-agency mortgage trading at Nomura Securities.?

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Wall Street’s Scrappy Underdog Has an Ambitious Plan to Make It Big

Wall Street Journal | Lauren Thomas

Many investment banks thinned their ranks as dealmaking sputtered in the past few years. Jefferies took the opposite approach. The bank is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to lure top bankers from competitors. The goal: become the world’s fifth-largest investment bank and maintain the spot year after year. So far this year, Jefferies is the seventh-largest by investment-banking revenue, up from 11th a year ago, making the goal sound relatively modest. But achieving it would require unseating a giant.?

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Banks Seemingly Build More Than Buy, But Why?

WatersTechnology | Anthony Malakian

This is a bit of a generalization, I know, but prior to the 2008 financial crisis, investment banks were building more and buying less. Sure, you had your Bloomberg Terminal, back-office vendor systems, and specialty order, execution, portfolio, and risk management systems, but the secret sauce was made in the building. I’m not saying it was 100% in one direction—it’s always a blend—but as I understand it, the pendulum swung toward build.

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How Susquehanna’s Jeff Yass Mastered the Options Game

Financial Times | Nicholas Megaw?

Jeff Yass used to see options trading as a “game”. Now he sees it as a “mission from God”. The billionaire co-founder of Susquehanna International Group has claimed he was a socialist during his student days at the State University of New York, but now he talks about capitalism with the zeal of a convert. “Throughout history, the money lenders have always been viewed with suspicion,” he told a student group dedicated to the promotion of free markets in 2021. “When you’re against finance, you’re fundamentally against all human progress.”

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AI on the Trading Floor: Morgan Stanley Expands OpenAI-Powered Chatbot Tools to Wall Street Division

CNBC | Hugh Son

Morgan Stanley is expanding the use of OpenAI-powered, generative artificial intelligence tools to its vaunted investment banking and trading division, CNBC has learned. The firm, which launched an AI assistant based on OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology to its wealth management advisors in early 2023, began rolling out another version called AskResearchGPT this summer in its institutional securities group, said Katy Huberty, Morgan Stanley’s global director of research.

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Exchange, ATS & Clearing News


CME Turns to Yellen in Battle for Dominance of US Treasuries

Bloomberg News | Katherine Doherty & Isis Almeida

CME Group Inc. is amping up the battle for market share in US Treasury futures, pulling all stops to thwart Howard Lutnick’s plan to launch rival contracts that clear in London. Chief Executive Officer Terry Duffy, who has repeatedly raised concerns about Lutnick’s plan for clearing, said he has taken the issue to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. The 66-year-old also spoke with Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler and Rostin Behnam, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

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American Financial Exchange Partners with EXIM Bank to Better Serve America's Community Banking Sector?

Press Release | N/A

The American Financial Exchange (AFX), a self-regulated exchange that provides banks and financial institutions a marketplace for overnight unsecured interbank lending and borrowing, announced today that it has partnered with the Export-Import Bank (EXIM), the official export credit agency of the United States.

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Traditional Exchanges Gain Ground in the US $100BN-A-Day Crypto Derivatives Market

IFR | Natasha Rega-Jones

A battle between the worlds of traditional finance and crypto currencies is heating up as mainstream exchange operators like CME Group start to grab a larger share of the US$100bn-per-day crypto derivatives market. CME, one of the largest derivatives exchanges in traditional financial markets, has seen average daily volumes in its bitcoin futures contracts almost triple over the past year to US$4.5bn amid growing interest from institutional investors.?

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The Innovators: How and Why Alternative Trading Systems Succeed

Coalition Greenwich | Jesse Forster

How three equity ATSs won over the won over the hearts and minds of market-savvy investors looking to minimize market impact costs. Coalition Greenwich gathered feedback from conversations in Q3 2024 with equity market professionals in the U.S. working at ATSs, exchanges, asset managers, broker-dealers, fintech providers, and industry associations.

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Vendor News


Broadridge to Support OTC Derivatives Reporting Across Various Jurisdictions

The TRADE News | Wesley Bray

Broadridge Financial Solutions has confirmed its preparedness to support new OTC derivatives reporting requirements by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) expected to go live on 21 October. Broadridge added that it is also expanding its offerings to include other updated regulatory regimes and asset classes, including the Canadian rewrite scheduled for July 2025 and the Hong Kong rewrite slated for September 2025.

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J.P. Morgan Launches Private Markets Data Solutions

Markets Media | Staff

J.P. Morgan announced the launch of its Private Markets Data Solutions for institutional investors, available through Fusion by J.P. Morgan. This is a comprehensive data management solution for private assets that enables investors, both General Partners (GP) and Limited Partners (LP), to analyze and gain transparency into their complete portfolio across public and private holdings and eliminate the manual processes of managing this operational workflow at scale.

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Talos Unveils New Portfolio Management System for Digital Assets

Press Release | N/A

Talos, the premier provider of institutional trading technology for digital assets, today announced the launch of its new Portfolio Management System (PMS), seamlessly integrating all of its portfolio management tools with its flagship order and execution management system (OEMS). This new offering delivers comprehensive front-to-back support for portfolio managers, traders, risk managers, and operations teams, expanding Talos’s platform to a complete investment management system for digital assets.

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RavenPack Unveils Bigdata AI Platform

Traders Magazine | Anna Lyudvig

Buy-side professionals are inundated with data, but they need real-time, trusted financial information and, critically, a way to make sense of it quickly, according to Armando Gonzalez, CEO of RavenPack. “The problem is that this data is often scattered across public sources, locked behind paywalls, or siloed within organizations,” he told Traders Magazine. To address this issue, RavenPack has launched Bigdata.com, an advanced AI platform set to transform financial research and decision making.?

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Bruce Boytim Named New CEO of Quor Group

Press Release | N/A

Quor Group, a global provider of commodity trade risk management (“CTRM”) software, is pleased to announce the appointment of Bruce Boytim as its new Chief Executive Officer. Bruce will lead the company in its mission to deliver cutting-edge, customer-centric CTRM and supply chain solutions to its clients worldwide. With a robust background in the financial services and technology sectors, Bruce brings over 20 years of experience in growing technology companies and delivering for their customers.

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Buy-Side News


TT International Picks Jean-Charles Sambor to Lead EM Debt Team

The DESK | Lucy Carter

TT International has appointed Jean-Charles Sambor as head of its emerging markets debt division. The group will run EM debt strategies across sovereign and corporate credit, FX and rates. Eric Mackay, managing director of TT International, said: “The launch of the new EM debt offering builds on longstanding capabilities. The team will help to develop our cross-asset EM leadership, as will the commitment and strong EM presence of our parent, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group.”

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In-House Algorithmic Execution Platforms Are The Way Forward

The TRADE News | Claudia Preece

What role could algos play in levelling up the front-office tech stack? Algorithms, especially when developed and managed internally, can significantly enhance the front-office tech stack. They reduce costs, lower market impact, and increase execution transparency. While the primary perception is that algorithms help investors execute orders efficiently, there’s much more to it. For instance, the additional data collected by algorithms offers endless possibilities. Storing order book updates received at millisecond intervals in a well-designed database enables high-level back testing.

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The Head of Cubist’s Centralized High-Speed Trading Unit Is Out After Less Than a Year

Business Insider | Alex Morrell

Cubist Systematic Strategies has been investing tens of millions into a centralized trading operation. One of its marquee hires, the lead of its high-frequency trading initiative, is now leaving the firm, according to people familiar with the matter. Vibhav Bukkapatanam joined Cubist, the systematic trading division of multimanager hedge fund Point72, last year as head of high frequency but is leaving after less than a year on the job, according to people familiar with the matter, who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the company's internal affairs.

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Citadel Hires Balyasny Director to Lead Equities Engineering

eFinancial Careers | Alex McMurray

Citadel wants its tech staff to head for Miami Beach, but some of its businesses are taking time to transition. Citadel's equities technology team seems rooted in New York, and its latest hire from rival hedge fund Balyasny isn't bucking the trend. William Pan has joined Citadel in New York as an engineering lead for its equities business. He spent the last seven and a half years at Balyasny, joining initially as a quant developer and working his way up to a director role in data enrichment. In a recent job listing, Balyasny describes data enrichment as "utiliz[ing] AI to enrich data sets, adding value through enhanced data attributes and insights."

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Man Group’s Head of Risk Engineering Doesn’t Trust ChatGPT When It Comes to Risk Management

WatersTechnology | Emma Hilary Gould

“When it comes to ChatGPT, I’m sure it’s a hot topic that we all care about,” said Vlad Mereuta, head of risk engineering at Man Group. “Personally, I see a lot less use from it. It’s great as an assistant. … I will not trust it to do anything from a risk perspective.” It’s perhaps a refreshing take in an age where it seems nearly everyone from consumers to conglomerates are trying to cut themselves a piece of the AI pie. And the scene was no different at a Tuesday meeting of risk and analytics professionals, held by MSCI in London. But AI’s adoption has been varied in financial services, where the technology’s benefits must outweigh, or at least match, its risks.

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M&A / Investment News


BGC Group Agrees to Acquire OTC Global Holdings

Markets Media | Staff

BGC Group, a leading global brokerage and financial technology company, announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire OTC Global Holdings, the largest independent institutional energy and commodities brokerage firm. Through this acquisition, BGC Group will further expand and diversify its global Energy, Commodities, and Shipping (“ECS”) business. OTC is one of the fastest growing energy and commodities brokerage firms, with global operations across North America, Europe, and Asia.?

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Amity Ventures Leads $3 Million Pre-Seed Round for Borderless.xyz

The Block | MK Manoylov

The blockchain-based payments firm Borderless.xyz announced on Wednesday that it has emerged from stealth and raised $3 million in pre-seed funding. Amity Ventures led the fundraise, bringing Borderless.xyz's total funding raised to $3.3 million. Nine additional angel investors, such as Talos founder Anton Katz and Fireblocks founder Michael Shaulov, also participated in the round, according to a release shared with The Block.

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Crypto Hedge Fund Managers Merge in Effort to Woo Pension Flows

Bloomberg News | Suvashree Ghosh

Crypto hedge fund managers JellyC and Trovio Asset Management have merged as part of an effort to attract allocations from institutional investors such as pension funds. Australia-based JellyC will be the majority shareholder of the combined operation, company executives said in interviews. Scale will help to open doors to big investors in the Asia Pacific, eventually including Australian superannuation funds, JellyC’s Co-Founder Michael Prendiville said.

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Stripe’s $1.1B Acquisition: Implications for Solana and Crypto VC

Blockworks | Jack Kubinec

News has slowly been trickling out that Stripe acquired the stablecoin platform Bridge for a reported $1.1 billion.?The acquisition is among the biggest ever in crypto, and it gave some credence to the idea that stablecoins — which provide crucial liquidity for crypto markets and show promise for making TradFi more efficient — might be the killer non-bitcoin use case for crypto.?The story also comes a few days after Stripe formally announced it had re-enabled crypto payments in the US with stablecoins.

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Regulatory & Legal News


NYSE, Cboe Win SEC Approval for Bitcoin ETF Options

CoinDesk | Cheyenne Ligon

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved stock exchange rule changes that permit the listing of options tied to spot bitcoin ETFs, broadening the investment ecosystem around products that've received billions of dollars of inflows this year. According to two memos from the SEC published Friday afternoon, NYSE will be allowed to list and trade options on the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), the Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust (BTC) and the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB). Cboe Global Markets got approval to list and trade options on the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) and the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB).

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Clearing Houses Fear Being Classified as DORA Third Parties

Risk.net | Paulina Pielichata

Central counterparties (CCPs) and exchanges fear information disclosure requests from their bank members will become excessive under the current interpretation of new European legislation. The European Union’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (Dora) enters into force in January 2025, and will require financial institutions such as banks and asset managers to have a better handle on the operational risks stemming from their third-party technology providers.

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CFTC to Police Electing-Betting Platforms, Chair Behnam Says

Bloomberg News | Lydia Beyoud

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission will police registered political derivatives markets despite its best efforts to kill them, agency Chairman Rostin Behnam said during a Tuesday interview with Bloomberg Television. The futures and swaps regulator finds itself having to serve as what Behnam likens to an “elections cop” even as it wages a court fight with Kalshi Inc., an exchange that lets Americans bet on election outcomes.

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Industry Not Sold on FIGI Mandate for US Reg Reporting

WatersTechnology | Rebecca Natale

Though many industry participants—particularly in market data and vendor management departments—harbor long-held disdain for the leading securities identifier, Cusip, they’re not convinced by US regulators’ recent proposal to use a competing identifier in its place for all regulatory reporting. In August, nine US regulators—including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Treasury, and Commodity Futures Trading Commission—jointly proposed rules.

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Crypto?& Digital Asset News


DBS Rolls Out Blockchain-Powered Banking for Institutions

Markets Media | Staff

DBS announced the introduction of DBS Token Services – a new suite of banking services that integrate tokenisation and smart contract-enabled capabilities with its award-winning banking services. It aims to unlock new transaction banking capabilities and operating efficiencies for its institutional clients. DBS Token Services unlocks instant, 24/7 real-time settlement of payments by integrating the bank’s Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible permissioned blockchain, its core payment engine and multiple industry payment infrastructures.

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How BlackRock Helped Bitcoin Get Its Mojo Back

DL News | Edward Robinson

At first it sounded like an unimportant reminiscence, a casual reference to the good old days on Wall Street with little significance for crypto investors. Hardly. When BlackRock CEO Larry Fink compared Bitcoin’s evolution with that of the mortgage-backed securities market of the 1980s, well, the analogy electrified crypto — with crypto mavens offering fresh takes on why the cryptocurrency “will go higher fast”. The mortgage bond market is a $11 trillion colossus, and the idea that digital assets would be mentioned in the same breath by one of the guys who helped build that pillar of the US economy was not on anyone’s bingo card.

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Gary Gensler's Contentious Reign Over Crypto Approaches Its Twilight

CoinDesk | Jesse Hamilton

Someday soon, somebody besides Gary Gensler will be calling the shots at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and most of the crypto industry will rejoice. More than any other figure in the U.S. government, this SEC chair played an unflinching antagonist to its aims. That no-holds-barred opposition to the way crypto companies want to do business is likely to cease, one way or another, in the coming year, when the securities agency gets a new boss.

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BlockFills Appoints Amy Shelly as CFO, Promotes Neil Van Huis to Chief Strategy Officer

Press Release | N/A

BlockFills, a leading digital assets technology and trading firm for institutions and professional traders, today announced the appointment of Amy Shelly as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and promotion of Neil Van Huis to Chief Strategy Officer. The executives assume significant leadership roles as the firm prepares to launch international offices, expands the BlockFills product offering and positions itself for major growth in the institutional digital assets space.

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FCA-Regulated Crypto Trading Firm Portofino Technologies Sees Staff Exodus

CoinDesk | Ian Allison & Will Canny

Portofino Technologies, a Switzerland-based crypto market making firm that was given the nod earlier this year from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to serve institutional crypto clients in the U.K., has seen an exodus of staff in recent months, following the sacking of the firm’s co-founder and its head of finance. Both Portofino’s chief operating officer and co-founder, Alex Casimo, and chief financial officer, Jae Park, were fired in July. This then triggered the resignations of Vincent Prieur, the head of strategy and operations, and Shane O’Callaghan, the global head of business development, as well as a significant number of the firm’s staff.?

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