Securities Industry News articles from April 2003

Securities Industry News archives from April 2003

SEC Backs Bloomberg Liquidity Quote View.
April 7, 2003... The Securities and Exchange Commission's conditional approval of the New York Stock Exchange's Liquidity Quote offering, issued late last week, could have far-reaching effects on market structure, according to some industry observers. The...

Taking a Stand: Instinet wants to halt quote redistribution to buy side.
April 7, 2003... Instinet is asking its member broker-dealers to stop redistributing its quotes to institutional clients, in a sign that the battle for the buy side may be heating up between the founder of the agency broker business and Wall Street's...

DTCC Pushes Changes to CP Processing.
April 7, 2003... About 18 months after the 9/11 disaster, market players are making progress in addressing its ramifications in the commercial paper (CP) and money market instrument (MMI) arena. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC), in conjunction...

Mercator Software Rejects Takeover Bid.
April 7, 2003... Swift vendor Mercator Software last week rejected an unsolicited $74 million takeover bid by Strategic Software Holdings, after a meeting of the two sides in New York City. Mercator said its board unanimously rejected the offer and it has...

Industry Still Worried About BCP Distance Regs.
April 7, 2003... It's Washington regulators, not the war, that most concern top New York City brokerages, exchanges and their vendors regarding business continuity planning (BCP), say market observers. The institutions are worried that forthcoming BCP...

SIA: Revised ISD Still Needs More E.C. Revisions.
April 7, 2003... The Securities Industry Association last month issued a comment letter in which it generally lauded the European Commission's efforts to revise the Investment Services Directive, which is expected to help lead to a unified European securities...

Reuters CEO Takes Heat for Bonus.
April 7, 2003... Reuters' 2002 annual report, released last month, included details on bonuses paid to CEO Tom Glocer and other top executives, sparking a flood of critical articles in the U.K. press. Glocer received a salary of GBP816,000, ($1,305,600) a...

Asset Control Maps to Telekurs.
April 7, 2003... Data management software house Asset Control said last week that it has finished mapping its AC Plus software to the Telekurs Valordata Feed (VDF), and is currently normalizing the feed to an internal standard that aligns to the ISO 15022 and...

Sonic Debuts First Multibroker Direct-Access System.
April 7, 2003... Sonic Financial Technologies (SFT) has launched the first multibroker direct-access system that allows buy-side firms to send orders to the broker-dealer of their choice in a portal environment. The new feature includes a drop-down window,...

Fiserv Loss Demonstrates Proprietary Trading Risk.
April 7, 2003... Despite its clearing firm's sophisticated risk management systems, a correspondent pursuing fraudulent trades can still blow up the house. Clearer Fiserv Securities' parent acknowledged last week that it was taking a one-time, after-tax...

FBI Seeks to Provide More AML Info.
April 7, 2003... Industry compliance officers may soon benefit from better anti-money laundering (AML) guidance about countries considered high-risk or uncooperative that do not appear on official AML lists, according to the FBI. Dennis Lormel, section...

Slow Growth for Data Outsourcing.
April 7, 2003... While outsourcing market data management is becoming more attractive for financial services firms, there is still heavy resistance to change, according to a new survey released by Iverson Financial Systems and financial services consultancy...

Crest Slated to Settle Money-Market Instruments.
April 7, 2003... The U.K. wholesale market will soon witness the fall of the final bastion of paper-based processing when its central depository takes over the settlement of money-market instruments (MMIs) in September. The decision to move the GBP160...

Clearstream Asked to Explain Past Policy on Euroclear.
April 7, 2003... The competition commissioner of the European Union Mario Monti asked Clearstream International last week to explain why the international depository "discriminated" against rival Euroclear Bank in denying the Brussels-based depository access to...

DTCC Expands Its Tax Services Offering.
April 7, 2003... The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC) said it will transmit to participants information on the tax classification of income payments for all securities eligible at its depository subsidiary, Depository Trust Co. (DTC), on its dividend...

Reuters Unveils European OMS for Equities, Derivatives.
April 7, 2003... Continuing to expand its presence into the execution business, Reuters Group Plc is entering the cross-border European cash equity and equity derivatives area with Reuters Order Management for Exchange Execution. The OMS, available on the...

Sun Microsystems Commits to Intel for Solaris.
April 7, 2003... Responding to customers who are considering or adopting the Linux operating system, Sun Microsystems is committing to provide its infrastructure software on Solaris on Intel servers, and pricing the combined package at between $100 and $200 per...

ArcaEx Delays Nasdaq Rollout.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2003... Archipelago said last week that, due to technical problems, it is delaying the migration of Nasdaq stocks to the ArcaEx exchange for stocks whose symbols start with the letters "N" to "S." "The difficulties experienced Tuesday [March...

Charles River Extends FIX Certification in Asia-Pacific.
April 7, 2003... Highlighting FIX vendors' growing focus on the Asia-Pacific region, Charles River Development has extended the FIX certification of its order management systems to Deutsche Bank's Asia-Pacific and Japanese operations, as well as Salomon Smith...

MJSK Taps Thomson One Advisor.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2003... Minneapolis-based Miller Johnson Steichen Kinnard (MJSK) has selected Thomson Financial's Thomson One Advisor wealth management workstation and Thomson One Equity desktop to support 125 brokers and about 15 traders, respectively. The products...

EMC Unveils Centera Compliance.
April 7, 2003... EMC has rolled out the Compliance Edition of its Centera content-addressed storage (CAS) system. The Compliance Edition was designed to help broker-dealers comply with the Securities and Exchange Commission's Electronic Storage Rule 17a-4,...

Accurate Software Signs Deal With ADP Wilco.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2003... Accurate Software has signed a marketing alliance with ADP Wilco, a wholly owned subsidiary of Automatic Data Processing. Under the terms of the deal, ADP Wilco will recommend that users of its Tarot and Gloss back-office processing systems...

FMC Revamps Sylvan For Fixed Income.
April 7, 2003... Canada's Financial Models Co. said it has expanded its FMC performance measurement, attribution and risk measurement system FMCSylvan to incorporate a fixed-income attribution (FIA) module. The launch of the FIA module follows the...

Cameron Systems Partners With Hong Kong's Infocast.
April 7, 2003... Melbourne-based FIX vendor Cameron Systems has entered into a partnership agreement with Infocast, a Hong Kong-based IT consultancy and settlement system vendor that will provide support and consulting services for CameronFIX, Cameron's...

CheckFree Investment Services Nabs Four New SMA Clients.
April 7, 2003... CheckFree Investment Services recently brought on four new users for CheckFree APL's multiple strategy portfolio (MSP) functionality for separately managed accounts, including Pimco Advisors, CDC IXIS Asset Management Advisors Group,...

PFPC Licenses SunGard's InvesTier Accounting Offering.
April 7, 2003... PFPC will replace its existing licensing agreement with a third-party software house for its hedge fund administration business with InvesTier, an investor accounting and Web-based reporting software package. PFPC will integrate the...

CyberTrader Markets Its New Ticker Plant.(Brief Article)
April 7, 2003... Charles Schwab's CyberTrader direct-access trading unit has built its own ticker plant to replace feeds from Reuters and HyperFeed, and is in discussions with other Schwab units about using the technology. The ticker plant currently supports...

In Canada, It's Sars That Triggers BCP.
April 7, 2003... Ever since the attacks of Sept. 11, business continuity planning and disaster recovery efforts have been driven by fears of terrorism. Although firms and industry utilities have for years planned, to various degrees, against service disruptions...

DTCC's Dirks Resigns as COO.
April 7, 2003... Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. will witness a changing of the guard later this month when its COO, Dennis Dirks, a 31-year veteran, steps down. He will be replaced by Donald Donahue, DTCC's managing director for technology, strategy and...

SEC Probes ECN Access, Pricing.(Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating electronic communications networks)
April 14, 2003... The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating fair access and pricing among electronic communications networks, a complex issue that has separately triggered a flurry of legal proceedings involving the top ECNs, sources said. ...

Full-Service Focus: Buy extends Fidelity's reach among brokerages.(Fidelity Investments Institutional Brokerage Group is acquiring Corresppondent Services Corp.)
April 14, 2003... Fidelity Investments Institutional Brokerage Group (IBG) entered the consolidation game last week with its move to buy UBS PaineWebber's Correspondent Services Corp. (CSC), a firm specializing in the full-service brokerage market in which...

Italy Latest to Adopt Equities CCP Service.(Cassa di Compensazione e Garanzia is launching a service)
April 14, 2003... Italy will become the next European market to adopt a central counterparty service for equities on May 23 when Cassa di Compensazione e Garanzia (CCG) goes live with the first phase of its new offering. The long-overdue service that could...

Street Eyes Linux ROI.
April 14, 2003... Beta customers of Reuters Market Data System (RMDS) expect to see as much as a 183-percent return on investment over five years by migrating from a Unix-based TIB or Triarch platform to Linux, and as much as a 94-percent ROI over three years,...

White Paper Stops Short of BCP Rules.(business continuity planning)
April 14, 2003... Wall Street firms considered "core" and "significant" to securities clearing and settlement "should" separate backup operations far enough away from primary sites so that they use separate electrical grids, telecom services, and labor pools,...

SEC punishing old Europe' on access issue.
April 14, 2003... The following was written by Benn Steil, Andre Meyer Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, in response to the article, "Limited Access: War, Economy Push Foreign Links Off SEC Agenda," which appeared in the March 31 issue of...

U.K. Industry Puts Energy at the Top.(London Stock Exchange appoints Chris Gibson-Smith as chairman and Financial Services Authority appoints Callum McCarthy as head)
April 14, 2003... The search to fill two key leadership posts in the U.K. financial services industry came to a conclusion last week with the appointment of Chris Gibson-Smith as the next chairman of the London Stock Exchange. He will replace Donald Cruickshank...

Trade Groups Pursue Buy-Side STP.(Bond Market Association and Securities Industry Association are the groups)
April 14, 2003... The Bond Market Association (BMA) announced last week it has renamed its technology and operations department the technology, operations and asset manager relations department, just one of several recent moves made by the major sell-side trade...

Treasury's OFAC Publishes First Weekly Penalty List.(U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control)
April 14, 2003... The shaming has begun: the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has for the first time published civil penalties and settlement actions related to violations of anti-terror financing and other prohibited...

FISD Seeks ISO 15022 Links Amid MDDL Upgrades.(Software & Information Industry Associations's Financial Information Services Div.)
April 14, 2003... In the midst of an aggressive release schedule for the market data definition language, the Financial Information Services Division of the Software & Information Industry Association is seeking industry input to help align MDDL with the ISO...

Norway's Central Depository Completes Public Offering.(VPS is the securities depository)
April 14, 2003... Norway's VPS last week became the first central securities depository to complete a public auction of stock, selling five million shares at NOK 70 ($9.6) per share. According to preliminary results released by VPS on Friday, institutional...

OCC Unveils Encore System.(Options Clearning Corp.)(Brief Article)
April 14, 2003... The Options Clearing Corp. said last week that its new clearing system, Encore, is now accepting trades in real time sent by the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and the Pacific Exchange (PCX). The CBOE feed went live earlier this...

Thomson Financial Taps Sarah Dunn for Content.(Thomson Financial Research)
April 14, 2003... Thomson Financial has named longtime Reuters executive Sarah Dunn EVP and chief content officer for its Thomson Financial Research unit. Dunn replaces former president Bob Bulik, who is leaving to pursue other interests, and will report to...

Trace in Uncharted Territory With BBBs.
April 14, 2003... The National Association of Securities Dealers today will, for the first time, publicly disseminate trade prices of low-rated BBB (S&P, Fitch) or Baa (Moody's) securities via its Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine (Trace), in what will serve...

FTI Teams Up With Telekurs on Reference Data.(Financial Technologies International)
April 14, 2003... Financial Technologies International last week became the second data software house to align itself with Telekurs, agreeing to map its StreetReference software package to Telekurs' Valordata Feed (VDF) product. As part of the Telekurs...

Fame Extends To IBM, Linux.(Fame Information Services offers ReferencePoint)(Brief Article)
April 14, 2003... Fame Information Services last week expanded the number of operating systems that can be used for the data validation, modeling, distribution and storage modules of its licensed data management software product suite, ReferencePoint, to include...

Street's Embrace of Intel, Windows, Linux Boosts Dell.
April 14, 2003... Dell's inexpensive but reliable workstations and laptop computers have always appealed to Wall Street firms, but with the recent interest in Intel, Windows and Linux, grid computing, and, of course, saving money, firms are turning to Dell...

OMS Upheaval Ahead; Growth Strongest in Europe.(order management system)(Industry Overview)
April 14, 2003... Worldwide spending on order management system (OMS) license and maintenance fees will grow by 15.3 percent (compounded annually) between 2002 and 2006, with the greatest increases occurring outside the United States, according to a recent...

Swapstream Links to SwapsWire.(Brief Article)
April 14, 2003... Swapstream, the soon-to-be launched trading platform for interest-rate derivatives backed by Swiss broker Gottex, has reached an agreement to interface with dealer-backed confirmation network SwapsWire. Under the terms of the deal, trades...

ADP/OMR Wins Sampo As Outsourcing Client.(Sampo Bank)(Brief Article)
April 14, 2003... ADP/OMR, a division of Automatic Data Processing Brokerage Services Group, said it has nabbed Finland's Sampo Bank as its first outsourcing client for TradeThru, a processing system for treasury and capital market products. Trades are sent...

Mellon European Fund Services Chooses Oceanus Group's CMS.(correspondence management system)(Brief Article)
April 14, 2003... Mellon European Fund Services (EFS), a division of Mellon Global Securities Services, the securities processing arm of Mellon Financial, said it has installed Oceanus Group's correspondence management system (CMS) to automate its customer...

InfoDyne Taps Reinmund To Head New York Office.(Daniel Reinmund becomes VP of New York operations)(Brief Article)
April 14, 2003... Park Ridge, Ill.-based InfoDyne has opened a New York office and named Daniel Reinmund, formerly VP of commercial policy at Reuters America, as VP of New York operations. Reinmund, who spent 15 years at Reuters, was also a product manager...

Kas Bank Becomes Crest Settlement Bank.(Brief Article)
April 14, 2003... The Netherlands' Kas Bank last month became the first Dutch bank to win the designation of settlement bank from U.K. central depository Crest, allowing it to offer the full package of clearing, settlement and custody services in the United...

Brut Moves to Boston Exchange for Internalization.(Boston Stock Exchange)
April 14, 2003... Brut, the ECN owned by SunGard Data Systems and a major liquidity provider to Nasdaq's SuperMontage, is planning to move all of its internalization business to the Boston Stock Exchange (BSE) for cost-cutting reasons. "Over the next few...

GL Adds Data Visualization.(GL Trade acquires 4D)(Brief Article)
April 14, 2003... Expanding its product reach into the front office, network provider GL Trade last week said it has acquired 4D, a data visualization firm. The Paris-based GL Trade will be integrating its front-end GLWin package with 4D's 4D Genie software...

Greenwich Associates: Online Forex Volume Up in '02.
April 14, 2003... The rate of growth in the number of firms trading foreign exchange on electronic platforms is starting to slow down, but online trading volume continues to spike, according to a report released last week by Greenwich Associates. The...

NexTrade vs. Instinet on Patent.(NexTrade Holdings)
April 14, 2003... NexTrade, the small Clearwater, Fla.-based electronic communications network, is suing Instinet for $105 million for alleged fraud and patent infringement of the name Pro-Trade, NexTrade's direct-access and portfolio management system for...

Nasdaq's Exchange Goal Remains.
April 21, 2003... Nasdaq may be headed for major changes under new management, but this will not alter its plan to become an independent exchange, newly appointed Nasdaq CEO and President Robert Greifeld told Securities Industry News. "Nasdaq is pursuing...

Hidden Meaning: Euroclear, fair & clear debate Giovannini findings.
April 21, 2003... The long-awaited second installment of a report on clearing and settlement in the European Union, prepared by a group of financial industry players led by former Italian banker Alberto Giovannini, provoked widely disparate interpretations from...

Crest Taps FT Interactive As Reference Data Source.
April 21, 2003... Crest, the U.K. and Irish central securities depository, will on June 2 replace the London Stock Exchange and Irish Stock Exchange with FT Interactive Data, one of the world's largest data vendors, as its direct source of dividend and income...

Boston Exchange Delays Nasdaq Stock Rollout.
April 21, 2003... The Boston Stock Exchange (BSE) is postponing the rollout of its Nasdaq stocks until further notice and for unspecified reasons, in turn delaying the Brut ECN's plan to report its internalized trades on the regional exchange. The BSE's...

Permanent Migration?(Swift to close ISO 7775 message users group, plans migration to ISO 15022 standard)
April 21, 2003... Swift is set to proceed with its scheduled closing of the ISO 7775 message users group (MUG) on May 31 as the final step in the market's migration to the ISO 15022 standard. However, the industry is already looking ahead to an XML-enabled...

FSA's Davis: Regs Should Protect ATS' And Market Investors.(Howard Davis speaks at Bond Market Association meeting )
April 21, 2003... Speaking at the Bond Market Association's annual meeting in New York City last week, Howard Davies, the chairman of the U.K's Financial Services Authority, discussed the proposed Investment Services directive. In the following excerpts from his...

Forex Platforms Prove Resiliency.
April 21, 2003... Three years ago, two heavyweights were expected to dominate the Internet-based foreign exchange market. A product of both the dot-com boom and the muscle that the major forex banks could bring to the marketplace, FXall and Atriax arrived with...

STA Urges End to ECN Access Fees.(Security Traders Association)(Brief Article)
April 21, 2003... The Security Traders Association (STA) last week urged the Securities and Exchange Commission to abolish access fees that electronic communications networks charge nonmember broker-dealers to access their marketplace. "The STA has long...

SEC Extends ADF Pilot for Nasdaq Stocks Only.(National Association of Security Dealers receives approval for alternative display facility)
April 21, 2003... The National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) last week received the Securities and Exchange Commission's approval to operate its alternative display facility (ADF) for another nine months under a pilot program restricted to Nasdaq...

Chicago Merc Taking Over CBOT Clearing Business.(Chicago Board of Trade)
April 21, 2003... The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) last week announced plans to shift all of its clearing business to its larger neighbor, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), in January 2004, severing a 78-year relationship with the independent Board of...

DTCC Enhances Its Acats Service for Tax Treatment.(Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.)
April 21, 2003... The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC) said last week that it is launching a companion service to its customer account transfer system, Acats, to allow brokerages and banks to include cost-basis information on securities accounts...

Asset Control Targets Energy.(launches AC Contour application)(Brief Article)
April 21, 2003... Data management house Asset Control has entered the energy arena through the release of a new application, called AC Contour, aimed at creating and visualizing scenario analysis for historical or time-series data. Company officials...

NYSE Accepts SEC Conditions on Liquidity Quote.
April 21, 2003... The New York Stock Exchange has accepted the Securities and Exchange Commission's conditions for approval of its planned Liquidity Quote offering, and expects to announce a launch date shortly. "The NYSE is pleased with the SEC's approval...

Tabb Leaves TowerGroup.(Larry Tabb to start new company )(Brief Article)
April 21, 2003... Larry Tabb, who was senior strategy adviser at TowerGroup, is leaving the Needham-Mass. based financial technology research firm after seven years to start his own consulting firm. The new company firm, to be called The Tabb Group, will...

Electronic Bond Trading: The Non-Zero-Sum Game?
April 21, 2003... The key to solving the conundrum that increasing transparency is deflating bond trading margins is to shift the process to a value-added servicing model and make it, where possible, a "non-zero-sum game," said Dr. Andrew J. Kalotay, a...

Morgan Stanley to Roll Out PC Blades.
April 21, 2003... Morgan Stanley has tapped Austin-based ClearCube Technology to provide blade PCs, workstations and software to support 2,000 positions in its new facility in Harrison, N.Y., as well as an office in Baltimore. In the Harrison office, which...

HSBC Taps Reuters for Outsourced FX Trading System.
April 21, 2003... HSBC, a top-tier bank in the foreign exchange arena, has turned to Reuters Group Plc to provide an outsourced FX trading service to its partner banks. The service is expected to go live in the third quarter. The announcement follows...

Reuters Spotlights Market Share.
April 21, 2003... Reuters' market share grew 2 percent last year to 39 percent, as measured in terms of revenue, and to 40 percent as measured by user accesses, Reuters CEO Tom Glocer said last week during a conference call to discuss first-quarter results with...

DataSynapse Expands Offering to IBM.(Brief Article)
April 21, 2003... DataSynapse, the peer-to-peer e-commerce software vendor, has expanded its relationship with IBM to enable its LiveCluster product to run on IBM's eServer z Series mainframe for Linux. LiveCluster allows firms to leverage the processing...

Basis100 Sells Stake in CanDeal Trading Platform.
April 21, 2003... Toronto-based technology vendor Basis100 has sold its 10-percent stake in Canadian debt trading platform CanDeal to its one-time venture partners-the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), MoneyLine Telerate and six of Canada's largest investment banks,...

Arca completes Exchange rollout.
April 21, 2003... Archipelago last week announced it has completed a two-year mutation from an electronic communications network into ArcaEx, the only U.S. exchange to trade the full roster of Nasdaq, New York Stock Exchange and American Stock Exchange issues....

ISDA Unveils Working Draft For the New Version of FpML.(International Swaps and Derivatives Association )
April 21, 2003... The International Swaps and Derivatives Association released a working draft of FpML 4.0 at ISDA's annual general meeting in Tokyo earlier this month. The new version will cover equity derivatives, equity swaps and credit derivatives, along...

Cantor Rolls Out Viewpoint.(Cantor Fitzgerald tests Web-based fixed-income commentary service )(Brief Article)
April 21, 2003... Cantor Fitzgerald last week began beta testing Cantor Viewpoint, a Web-based fixed-income commentary service, on the eSpeed platform. The real-time service, which provides commentary on economic events and markets, and includes technical...

Trace Financial, Goal Complete Alliance Pact.(Brief Article)
April 21, 2003... Trace Financial said last week that it has formed an alliance with Goal Group, the tax reclamation software vendor, to link Goal's GTRS product with Trace's CAMS corporate actions software system. GTRS (Global Tax Reclamation System)...

TimesTen Upgrades Software Supporting Events Processing.(Brief Article)
April 21, 2003... TimesTen, provider of real-time event processing software, is rolling out version 5.0 of its product. The software includes an in-memory data manager, as well as data replication capability, RDBMS adapter and event management. TimesTen...

Cameron Debuts Version 6.1Of Its Flagship FIX Engine.(Cameron Systems )(Brief Article)
April 21, 2003... Cameron Systems last week unveiled version 6.1 of its FIX engine, CameronFIX. The new version features expanded integration capacity, called Zero Risk Integration, which the firm said includes adaptors that will accommodate the IBM MQ Series,...

Aladdin, Pointsec Mobile Secure Wireless for Banks.(Aladdin Knowledge Systems Ltd.)(Brief Article)
April 21, 2003... Aladdin Knowledge Systems Ltd. and Pointsec Mobile Technologies announced a partnership last week to provide wireless "two-factor network authentication" to secure sensitive data on mobile laptops and PDAs for financial firms and other...

Dow Jones Newswires Inks Deals for NewsPlus.(Brief Article)
April 21, 2003... Dow Jones Newswires' NewsPlus, an XML-based version of the company's news service, is now available via Communicator, Moneyline Telerate, NewsWare, Wall Street Source, Agencia Estado and CMA. The service is also available through Thomson...