Securities Industry News articles from February 2005

Securities Industry News archives from February 2005

Derivatives Drive 2005: Last week's online auction indicative of sell-side ops priorities.(The Goldman Sachs Group Inc.)
February 7, 2005... The outsize growth in derivatives volume has gotten to the point, experts say, where the world's largest investment banks and broker-dealers consider streamlining the operational processing of derivative securities to be a paramount objective...

Forex Marts Keep Up With Change: Will Hotspot FX buck consolidation trend with Portware deal?(partnerships)
February 7, 2005... Technological progress is doing more and more to enhance the foreign exchange market's ability to service increased demand from hedge funds and other heavy users. Electronic transactions are speeding up and smoothing out the complexity of...

Checkered China: Behind the headlines, a game of mah-jongg may mean risky business.(China Securities Regulatory Commission)
February 7, 2005... For China's domestic brokerages, the bad news just keeps on coming: a string of financial scandals, record losses, and the stock market at a six-year low. On top of that, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) recently said that...

Protecting the Franchise.
February 7, 2005... In 1975, Congress charged the Securities and Exchange Commission with the job of facilitating a national market system (NMS). As envisioned, the NMS would ensure fair competition among market participants and between the markets themselves. Key...

The Sky Is Not Falling: Peake Responds to Thain.(Junius W. Peake, John Thain debates on national market system )
February 7, 2005... Junius W. Peake, distinguished professor of finance at the Kenneth W. Monfort College of Business, University of Northern Colorado, is not only an academic authority on equities market structure but also a veteran of decades on Wall Street and...

Credit Default Swaps Make For Strange Bedfellows.(derivatives market)
February 7, 2005... The International Securities Association for Institutional Trade Communication (ISITC) is an industry group that deals with straight-through processing and the clearing and settlement of trades. The International Swaps and Derivatives...

Between Thought and Expression: Why Nybot's new contract required such heavy backstage preparations.(New York Board of Trade)
February 7, 2005... The New York Board of Trade (Nybot) will roll out a long-awaited options product for future spreads on sugar and cotton contracts next month. Months in the makingyears, really, if you count developmentthe new product is living proof that...

World Wide Watch: FinCEN rolls out Web-based BSA-Patriot Act reporting system.(Financial Crimes Enforcement Network)
February 7, 2005... In an effort to improve compliance with Section 314(a) of the USA Patriot Act and better protect the identity of filers, the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is rolling out a Web-based reporting system this...

The Cost of Compliance IT Nears One Billion Dollars at Brokerages.(information technology)
February 7, 2005... It's no secret that the costs associated with regulatory compliance are skyrocketing for broker-dealers, mutual funds and newly regulated hedge fund managers. It may surprise you, however, to learn just how much. According to new research from...

E-lenders Talk Tech Coopetition.(eSecLending, EquiLend)
February 7, 2005... Electronic securities lending platform eSecLending is in talks with EquiLend to use the latter's administrative services, eSecLending officials confirmed last week. ESecLending would continue to run its auction model for securities lending...

Popular Portal Mainlines U.S. Exchange Data.(Yahoo! Inc., American Stock Exchange L.L.C., Nasdaq Stock Market Inc., New York Stock Exchange Inc.)
February 7, 2005... Internet portal heavyweight Yahoo has launched a bid to wrest control of some of the financial market data it streams to users by setting up its own ticker plant and establishing direct relationships with three of the largest stock exchanges in...

Fulfilling Skilling's Dream: Archipelago taps Sun as first source of liquidity for infant commodity computing exchange.(Archipelago Exchange, Sun Microsystems Inc.)
February 7, 2005... On Wall Street, once a commodity is identified, there's going to be somebody wanting to trade it. If you happen to be the person who first spots the potential opportunity, you might be in luck. Enron's Jeffrey Skilling had that simple fact of...

Ratings Reconsidered: Senate quizzes agencies as experts ask: Are regulators out to lunch?(credit rating agencies)
February 14, 2005... Long eclipsed by other regulatory priorities, the role of credit agencies in the capital markets is moving to the front burner. And there is wide agreement that problems in the industry have reached the point where attention must be paid. "The...

Comprehensive in Transition: Customers praise processing wares, but financing dries up.(Comprehensive Software Systems)
February 14, 2005... Despite at least one major success, trade processing technology provider Comprehensive Software Systems has cut back its sales efforts, letting go its CEO and its sales and marketing staff, in an effort to re-evaluate its business strategy and...

Wall Street's IP Death Match.(intellectual property)
February 14, 2005... As momentous as it may seem to some, last week's courtroom loss by eSpeed on a $100 million claim that ICAP's Brokertec infringed the "580" patent eSpeed has on its trading platform may be nothing more than the latest point swing in a 20-year...

The Idea Exchange.(information management)
February 14, 2005... There's a lot of cynicism in the air about the press these days. Books, films, articles and Web sites on media bias are everywhere, from Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 911" to the bloggers who pushed the "Rathergate" story about iffy fact-checking...

The Trade-Through Rule Must Go.(securities industry)
February 14, 2005... With market structure regulation as a facilitator, the U.S. equity marketplace of the future will continue to grow as a rapidly evolving network that draws its strength from technology, competition, and sheer size. But to realize the powerful...

Corrections:.(Correction Notice)
February 14, 2005... In "Does Compliance Pay?" (Jan. 25) we erroneously reported that Allbridge is the maker of the CashEdge data aggregation solution. Allbridge is a user of CashEdge. We regret the error. In "Grids Try Muscling In On SMPs,""we erroneously implied...

Pax Is Object of Merrill Pro's Options Bid.(Pax Clearing, Merrill Lynch and Company Inc.)
February 14, 2005... The small group of firms that clear for market makers in the options space is set to mark the passing of yet another competitor--another step in the rapid consolidation of the options clearing business recently. Merrill Lynch Professional...

In LSE Drama, Much Back-Office Uncertainty.(London Stock Exchange)
February 14, 2005... Would clearing and settlement agents--and their clients--fare better financially if the Deutsche Borse owned the London Stock Exchange? Or would they be better off with Euronext? That's the question nobody seeming willing--or able--to...

Turrets Syndrome: Trading budgets bet that outcry is here to stay.(voice trading)
February 14, 2005... Exchanges may be moving inexorably toward electronic trading for faster execution, but that doesn't mean that traditional voice trading in an open outcry environment has gone the way of the dinosaur. Voice trading has also moved steadily into...

Post-Carly, Will Wall Street Have HP's Attention?(Carly Fiorina, Hewlett-Packard Co.)
February 14, 2005... Carly Fiorina's tenure at Hewlett Packard was marked by political infighting, the merger with Compaq and struggles to rationalize the company's disparate business lines. After Fiorina's forced departure last week, the company may be able...

Morgan Rolls Its Own Messaging.(J.P. Morgan Chase and Co.)
February 14, 2005... JP Morgan Chase is promoting adoption of a new open source protocol for messaging between investment banks. Called "AMQ," the protocol aims to achieve interoperability between applications written in the C, C++ and Java programming languages,...

Swift Departure Follows Network Lag.(SwiftNet FIX, Matt Fox)
February 14, 2005... Though Swift, the industry messaging consortium, insists that drastic changes are not expected in the wake of Matt Fox's departure last week from his job as program manager for the consortium's SwiftNet FIX hub, sources acknowledge that the...

Counterparty Data Emerges From Obscurity.(information management)
February 14, 2005... While the problem of maintaining accurate reference data is getting the lion's share of attention from the data management set, its sister problem--counterparty data--is growing up fast, as shown by the interest it attracted at the Financial...

Reference Data Moves Into The Spotlight.(information management)
February 14, 2005... It's official--reference data is a hot button topic this year. The back-office collection of largely static information that financial firms need to collect support and define trade activity is being pitched as the sexiest member of the market...

Evangelists, Skeptics Assess New Model.(Financial Information Management Association, reference data )
February 14, 2005... ISO 19312 will standardize reference data developed under ISO 20022, panelists say At last week's Financial Information Management Association conference at New York's Waldorf-Astoria hotel, Sandy Throne, of the Depository Trust & Clearing...

Atkin's Health Plan for Financial Data.(Financial Data Coalition, Michael Atkin)
February 14, 2005... Michael Atkin, former director of the Financial Services Industry Division (FISD) of the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), is promoting a new health plan for the beleaguered reference data industry. Atkin's new...

The Open Source IPO: New issuance rules from the SEC affirm the information age at last.
February 21, 2005... Competitive maneuvering and regulations proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission are nudging the process of new securities issuance into the computer age, which may mean that IPO shares get allocated among a much larger and more...

Toward a Fund Processing Passport: Despite progress across the Pond, Europeans grapple with the basics.(European Fund and Asset Management Association)
February 21, 2005... The European investment management community wants desperately to harmonize the disparate practices of its members to reduce the morass of paper and the high processing costs that plague European funds. Hot off the press from the European...

How TSX Got Its Mojo Back.(Toronto Stock Exchange's management)
February 21, 2005... There are many moments that might be used to sum up the technology failures and resulting public relations nightmares that plagued the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) throughout the 1990s, but the following incident may be the most memorable: In...

Calvino on Wall Street.(Italo Calvino works)
February 21, 2005... Readers of Securities Industry News know without being reminded that Italian neo-realist and magical-realist literature is not a subcategory of straight-through processing or front-to-back-office integration that we have much expertise in....

Commanding Process: How a big securitization issuer uses process-based software to get more done.(GMAC Residential Funding Corp. using Pegasystems Inc.'s PegaRules Process Commander software)
February 21, 2005... In mid-February, business process management software vendor Pegasystems announced that GMAC-RFC, a Minneapolis-based subsidiary of General Motors that issues mortgage-backed securities and mortgage-related loan asset-backed securities, had...

FIX Comes Back in Syndication.(FIX Protocol Ltd., International Primary Market Association )
February 21, 2005... In what appears to be an attempt to jump-start the deployment of FIX for fixed income, FIX Protocol Ltd. (FPL) has signed a statement of understanding with the International Primary Market Association (IPMA), a London-based trade organization,...

PHLX: No Jacket Needed.(Philadelphia Stock Exchange Inc. got approval for Online trading services)
February 21, 2005... The Philadelphia Stock Exchange (PHLX) received Securities and Exchange Commission approval last week to establish remote market making for options trading. Firms will now be able to electronically make markets in every option class traded at...

Canada to Mandate Same-Day Matching.(Canadian Securities Administrators regulations)
February 21, 2005... Canada, which often marches in lockstep with the U.S. in setting its agenda for post-trade securities processing initiatives, now appears to have outdone its largest trading partner. The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA), the...

Athens and Cyprus in Talks for Tie-In.(Athens Exchange S.A., Cyprus Stock Exchange)
February 21, 2005... The Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) and Cyprus Stock Exchange (CSE) are in discussions over how to allow member firms access to each other's trading platforms, which could open the door for Greek custodian banks to expand their business to the...

Lehman to Certify Fixed Income With TransactTools.(Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.)
February 21, 2005... New York-based FIX vendor TransactTools last week completed its fixed income certification process for Lehman Brothers' fixed income, using its OpenFIX testing service. TransactTools, one of the four vendors selected by FIX Protocol Ltd. (FPL)...

Auditors Drive Derivatives Into the Arms of E'.(swaps management, Securities and Exchange Commission regulations)
February 21, 2005... Requests from counterparties, auditors and regulators have spurred the launch of risk management solutions that make reporting of trade confirmations for debt-linked derivatives transactions more accurate, automatic and transparent. ...

Is Reg SHO Catching Up With Finders'?(regulations, New York Stock Exchange investigation on Van der Moolen Specialists USA)
February 21, 2005... The recent decision by Van der Moolen Specialists USA to shut down its securities lending department is drawing industry attention to what the implications of the dreaded Regulation SHO may actually look like. In a statement issued last...

Postcards (and Podcasts) From the Bleeding Edge : Today PlayStation, tomorrow the financial supermarket.(technology application)
February 21, 2005... IBM's decision to roll out its bleeding-edge cell chip for the PlayStation gaming system--remaining silent for the time being about the far more interesting enterprise applications of the technology--reminds us once again of the way in which...

BOX One Year On: Q&A With William Easley.(Boston Options Exchange)(Interview)
February 21, 2005... It's been one year since the Boston Options Exchange (BOX) opened its doors to trading, inaugurating not only a pioneering all-electronic equity derivatives market but also an ongoing debate over market structure and a stronger push towards...

Chicago Venture Merges Markets Online.(Alliance Financial, Integrated Brokerage Services and IBS Securities's service )
February 21, 2005... Imagine the hedging and investment possibilities with Web-based tools in equities, foreign exchange, futures and precious metals, all on the same Web site and aggregated into one statement for valuation purposes Just such a service went...

Hedge Funds Leverage FpML.(financial products markup language, Data Standards Working Group)
February 21, 2005... With the growth of hedge funds comes the need for automation. But because the strategy of alternative investment vehicles rarely involves apples-to-apples trading of instruments, and takes place in a market that is overflowing with new...

Gaming the System: Why gamers will get their hands on the next big thing before Wall Street does.(International Business Machines Corp.'s new cell chip)
February 21, 2005... It's ten to fifty times faster than the Pentium 4. It's said to run cooler. It's tiny. And it's built to play well with other chips in a distributed environment. It's "one of the most important developments in the computing industry in years,"...

The Social Securities Industry: There are billions to be made from private accounts. So why won't anyone say so?(services of H&R Block)(e-filing returns)(Express IRA)
February 28, 2005... Brokerage firms are publicly courting the 100 million or so "uninvested" Americans for whom the payroll-deducted social security benefits program represents the only form of retirement savings. The efforts come despite official denials from...

You've Got Interest: Thomson's AutEx network plugs in AOL Instant Messenger.(America Online)
February 28, 2005... Instant messaging has been making steady inroads into financial firms. Notwithstanding security and compliance concerns, people just can't get enough of the convenience of IM chat with friends, colleagues and clients--and now, with potential...

Iosco Orders Outsourcing.
February 28, 2005... Outsourcing--offloading work onto third-party agents--has become as common as breathing in the financial services industry, and now regulators are putting in their two cents' worth on a subject once regarded as purely a business matter. ...

The Face and the Facade.
February 28, 2005... Werner Seifert is the face of the Deutsche Borse. True, even in today's world of celebrity worship, that by itself probably isn't going to earn him his own reality television show--unless maybe the show comes with a surefire, ratings-bolstering...

The Future Is in Futures.(growth of Global hedge fund )
February 28, 2005... Craig S. Donohue, CEO of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), spoke last week to the law and compliance division of the Futures Industry Association. We excerpt his comments here. A year ago, when I had just become CEO of the Chicago...

RSS: Death to Occupational Spam'.(Really Simple Syndication)
February 28, 2005... ING was hit hard by all the Internet hype. Every division and department put up its own Web site on the company Intranet. Confusion soon reigned supreme, followed by indifference. "What happens is that nobody is looking at these sites and there...

ArcaEx Wakes Up With Europe.(Archipelago Exchange)
February 28, 2005... Archipelago will begin holding the Archipelago Exchange's electronic opening auction of all U.S. listed and over-the-counter (OTC) issues on the ArcaEx facility at 4 a.m. EST (1 a.m. PST) starting on April 8, 2005. The earlier opening is...

Crest Muddies Waters for DB.(Deutsche Borse)
February 28, 2005... The U.K.'s central depository Crest will cut its fees, putting a dent in the Deutsche Borse's efforts to promote competitive processing fees as an advantage over rival Euronext as it tries to take over the London Stock Exchange (LSE). Effective...

Compliance Complexity Is the Talk of Nicsa.
February 28, 2005... The Securities and Exchange Commission's ambitious reform agenda has given rise to countless articles and analyses that depict industry service providers licking their chops over the business opportunities created by the new requirements. ...

RIXML, XBRL Find a Page Both Can Turn To.(research information extensible mark-up language)
February 28, 2005... The consortium responsible for the development of the research information extensible mark-up language (RIXML) will present at XBRL.org's April meeting in Boston as part of a joint announcement that is expected to result in a project to expand...

Report: Electronic FX Trading to Surge.(foreign exchange market)
February 28, 2005... Electronic trading activity in the foreign exchange market is expected to substantially increase in both the interdealer and dealer-to-client markets by 2007, according to a Celent Communications study released last week. Entitled "An Overview...

TCA: Measuring Algo Trading's Bang-Buck Ratio.
February 28, 2005... Under pressure to show best execution and cost-effective trading to investors and regulators, portfolio managers are calling for more effective ways of measuring the performance of algorithmic trading solutions, according to analysts and money...

Tabb Quizzes Hedge Funds.(Tabb Group)
February 28, 2005... While it's true that many hedge funds are unlikely to abandon old- fashioned means of trading such as phone and fax, "low-touch" or "no-touch" channels will become the norm for the industry in the next two years, according to a recent...

Expert: AML Needs Data Standards.(anti-money laundering)
February 28, 2005... Global initiatives to combat money laundering and terrorist financing could soon give rise to a trend toward standardization of reference data that will affect the policies of individual firms and perhaps even come with a regulatory imprimatur....

Legent Bolsters Its Capital and Expertise.(Legent Clearing)
February 28, 2005... Amid the general trend toward consolidation in the clearing business, a successful smaller player from the Midwest recently received an impressive injection of capital and back-office expertise, priming it to expand its niche customer base of...

Bridging the Gap: TradeWeb, Oasys and Swift.(Thomson TradeWeb)
February 28, 2005... Two recently announced integration projects will significantly widen the scope of transaction opportunities and information available to users of global electronic trading networks. Thomson TradeWeb will soon link its TradeXpress fixed-income...

Seti@Work: The Hartford applies an open-source grid model to discover out-of-this-world hedging power.(Hartford Life Inc.)
February 28, 2005... The Hartford faces a daunting risk: Variable annuity clients with income benefit guarantees are assured a return on principal of either 5 percent or 7 percent a year, depending on the guarantee they choose. The stock market, however, doesn't...

Bank of America Moves to Strong Authentication.(BankAmerica Corp.)
February 28, 2005... In the wake of a recent lawsuit by a business customer who lost $90,000 to a Latvian cybercriminal, Bank of America has announced that it will begin rolling out two-factor authentication (see "Don't Feed the Phisher," Securities Industry News,...

Atomic' Test for Web Services.(Arjuna)
February 28, 2005... On Feb. 8, software vendors Iona Technologies and Arjuna announced that they had successfully demonstrated interoperability among their Web services products and those of other companies at a workshop hosted by IBM in Newcastle, England....