Securities Industry News articles from January 2003

Securities Industry News archives from January 2003

Track, NexTrade Cut Trading Fees.
January 6, 2003... The Track ECN and NexTrade are cutting trading fees in a sign that intense competition and pricing pressure might well remain the dominant themes for electronic communications networks and other execution venues in 2003. Track on Monday...

U.K. Lobbies for Change: LSE leads opposition to latest Investment Services Directive draft.
January 6, 2003... High on the list of priorities for the London Stock Exchange and the U.K. investment industry in general in the New Year is the need to lobby for a change to the European Commission's recently published draft proposal for a new Investment...

India Pushes Post-Trade Automation Agenda.
January 6, 2003... In a major step toward straight-through processing, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is recommending that market players replace paper-based communications on post-trade details with an accredited electronic service using the...

AML Plans move to active phase.(anti-money laundering)
January 6, 2003... Following last year's passage of the USA Patriot Act, law enforcement, regulatory and compliance officials have begun to get down to brass tacks in their shared, complex, unprecedented mission to guard the financial system against terrorist...

Dirty Data Could Come Clean in '03.
January 6, 2003... When a TowerGroup study two years ago indicated that 79 percent of respondents agreed that poor reference data was a major cause of failure to achieve straight-through processing internally and the cause of more than 30 percent of trade...

Looking ahead: Slight chance of improvement.(predictions for 2003)
January 6, 2003... Down, dismal, depressing, disastrous. It seems "D" words best describe the demise of 2002. By now we've heard enough about 2002 marking three consecutive years of U.S. stock market declines, the Nasdaq Composite Index's plunging 31.5 percent,...

CME's Success May Bode Well for Others.(Chicago Mercantile Exchange)
January 6, 2003... The Chicago Mercantile Exchange's (CME) record volume and soaring profits in 2002 may bode well Nasdaq Liffe Markets (NQLX) and OneChicago, the two new exchanges that are still quietly rolling out single-stock futures. Volume for equity...

Bloomberg Criticizes NYSE's Liquidity Quote.(New York Stock Exchange)
January 6, 2003... The New York Stock Exchange's proposed rule change related to its planned new offering, Liquidity Quote, is expected to be published in the Federal Register shortly, and the SEC has already received a comment letter from Bloomberg objecting to...

Goldman to Keep Bulk of Equity Operations Downtown.(Goldman Sachs)
January 6, 2003... Goldman Sachs has decided not to move the majority of its equities trading unit to Jersey City, N.J. Most of that division will remain in Lower Manhattan, confirmed Bruce Corwin, a Goldman Sachs spokesman, to Securities Industry News last...

MBRM Purchases Cygnifi's Intellectual Property Rights.(MB Risk Management, Cygnifi Derivative Services)
January 6, 2003... London-based MB Risk Management (MBRM) has bought the rights to use the entire intellectual property of Cygnifi Derivative Services, the spin-off of the former J.P. Morgan that filed for bankruptcy protection in October 2001. MBRM...

SunGard to Add Software, Clearing in Andover Buy.(SunGard Data Systems to acquire Andover Brokerage assets)(Brief Article)
January 6, 2003... SunGard Data Systems has reached a definitive agreement to acquire the assets of Andover Brokerage, a New York City-based firm that provides direct-access trading and clearing services to the professional investor community. SunGard plans...

eSpeed to Offer Treasury Futures Trading.(deal with Chicago Board of Trade)(Brief Article)
January 6, 2003... eSpeed has inked a deal with the Chicago Board of Trade to distribute the CBOT's products through eSpeed. The move is eSpeed's first foray into electronic futures trading. When futures are rolled out in the first quarter, customers will be...

SecFinex Licenses Software to RBC Global Services.
January 6, 2003... SecFinex, the London-based electronic securities lending and borrowing platform, has licensed its software to RBC Global Services, the custody arm of Royal Bank of Canada. The move marks SecFinex's first licensed sale of its software and...

Spain's Meff Taps Swift Network.(Brief Article)
January 6, 2003... Meff, Spain's futures and options exchange, has chosen Swift as its new network provider, exchange officials confirmed. Under the terms of the deal, Meff-a subsidiary of Spain's Grupo Mercados Financieros-will also use the ISO 15022 message...

Citibank Implements New Account Structure in Poland.(Bank Handlowy w Warszawie)
January 6, 2003... Bank Handlowy w Warszawie, Citigroup's Polish subsidiary, has introduced a new account structure and settlement procedures for the international broker-dealer community to meet the new provisions of Polish securities law expected to take effect...

Long Road Ahead for Nasdaq IPO.
January 6, 2003... Nasdaq still hopes to move ahead with its proposed initial public offering in 2003, but the plan remains a long shot due to a number of concerns that highlight the difficulty in privatizing a three-decade-old public utility. "It's very...

Web Services: Set for Prime time.(security standards )
January 6, 2003... Wall Street firms are already enjoying the benefits of Web services for internal integration, but a lack of security standards has hindered use outside corporate firewalls. That situation will start to change in 2003 as standards-setting bodies...

Industry bullish on linux adoption.
January 6, 2003... The securities industry, one of the earliest champions of general commercial use of Unix in nonengineering applications in the late 1980's and early '90's, is on the leading edge once again, this time in adopting the Linux operating system. ...

U.S. Exchanges Embrace Demutualization.
January 6, 2003... While privatization pioneer Nasdaq is still struggling with its plan for an initial public offering, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange (PHLX) and other U.S. markets are embracing demutualization to ensure their future. "The first piece of...

Consortia, initiatives go down the drain in 2002.(year in review)
January 6, 2003... Is it possible to overstate how difficult this past year has been? Even those seeking the proverbial silver lining had to pin their hopes on the idea that the worse things get, the closer we are to a recovery. That such a recovery will come is...

CLS Guides foreign exchange market to New Era.(continuous-linked settlement system)
January 6, 2003... The past year has been a tough time for any technology initiative in the securities industry. Thus, success for CLS-the new continuous-linked settlement system for foreign exchange trades, which had already missed several deadlines and launch...

J.P. Morgan Chase Seeks Cost Savings With IBM Deal.
January 6, 2003... J.P. Morgan Chase's seven-year, $5 billion global outsourcing deal with IBM-covering both its institutional and retail businesses-will both lower costs and improve service delivery quality, according to an executive at the firm. J.P....

Brass Knuckles: SunGard scales back plans for OMS in Europe.
January 13, 2003... SunGard Trading Systems, a subsidiary of SunGard Data Systems, is scaling back on expansion plans for its Brass sell-side order management system in Europe and laying off half of its London staff, officials confirmed last week. "We went...

Thomson Financial Combines Divisions.
January 13, 2003... Thomson Financial is combining the bulk of its investment banking unit with its sales and trading group, renaming it banking and brokerage and giving Lou Eccleston, formerly the president of sales and trading, responsibility for the group....

Merger Brings New Scale to Clearing.
January 13, 2003... The biggest merger in clearing firm history-between BNY Clearing and Pershing-appears likely to be a winner for correspondents, raising the bar in terms of products and services offered to brokerage customers and pushing further consolidation...

Opra to Roll Out Options BBO Service.
January 13, 2003... The Options Price Reporting Authority is gearing up to launch a best bid and offer (BBO) market data service for options on Jan. 31. The move follows an order from the Securities and Exchange Commission last month approving the plan on a...

Nymex vs. ICE: Who Owns Market Prices?
January 13, 2003... The Internet-based IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) and the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), the world's largest physical commodity futures exchange, are engaged in a legal battle that may have a far-reaching impact on over-the-counter (OTC)...

Competition Regs Integral to European Market Integration.
January 13, 2003... Speaking at a meeting of the U.K. Association of Private Client Investment Managers and Stockbrokers last month, Prof. Mario Monti, European Commissioner for competition policy, discussed the competition issues arising from the trend toward...

Account Location Not Always Clear.
January 13, 2003... As the use of the Internet in cross-border trading continues to increase-whether it's state-to-state or nation-to-nation-legal issues, such as determining the jurisdiction of transactions from a liability standpoint, grow increasingly complex....

Icap Launches Swap Service.(Brief Article)
January 13, 2003... Interdealer broker Icap revealed last week that it has extended a swaps price discovery platform, created with Australian software vendor Computershare, to its clients. The long-awaited service, known as iSwap, is a price display and trade...

Nasdaq to Resume Reporting Its Own Market Share.
January 13, 2003... With its new SuperMontage platform fully rolled out, Nasdaq is planning to resume reporting its market share in its own stocks no later than the end of January, Nasdaq Chief Economist Mike Edleson said. "SuperMontage's rollout was completed...

Bankruptcy Suit Dismissed for New Swift Provider.
January 13, 2003... Colt Technologies, one of four network vendors selected by Swift recently to replace bankrupt provider Global Crossing in developing and running Swift's IP Network, has itself recently dodged a bankruptcy bullet. Late last month, London...

CBOT Turns to Liffe Platform; Eurex Targets U.S. Market.
January 13, 2003... Euronext's Liffe scored a significant success in the U.S. derivatives trading arena last week, when the Chicago Board of Trade selected LiffeConnect as its electronic trading platform. LiffeConnect will replace Eurex's a/c/e platform in...

Vienna Depository Seeks New Settlement Platform.(Brief Article)
January 13, 2003... OeKB, Austria's central depository, will shortly put out a request for proposals for a new settlement system for over-the-counter trades, depository officials confirmed last week. The depository has been relying on a platform known as DS...

Euronext-Paris Settles lawsuit.(Brief Article)
January 13, 2003... Euronext-Paris will pay the Chicago Mercantile Exchange $7.5 million to resolve an indemnification dispute related to CME's $15 million settlement in August of the Wagner Patent litigation with eSpeed. The Wagner Patent deals with...

Treasury's New AML Recommendations Target Funds.
January 13, 2003... The U.S. Treasury Department has recommended that open-ended mutual funds be required to file suspicious activity reports (SARs) and mandated that unregistered investment companies, mainly hedge funds, establish customer identification and...

U.K. Report Leaves Custodians in the Cold.(Brief Article)
January 13, 2003... The U.K. government's long-awaited consultation document on the future of the country's pension industry, published last month, has disappointed some custodians that had hoped for more clarity on their legal role in processing pension fund...

Omgeo Pays $20M Dividend to Thomson, DTCC.
January 13, 2003... Omgeo said last week said it had returned a $20-million dividend to be shared equally by its parent companies, Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. and Thomson Financial, after reporting an increase in the number of clients and trading volumes,...

MDDL Looks to Exchanges for Growth.
January 13, 2003... With the Financial Information Services Division of the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA/FISD) extending its market data definition language (MDDL) within the fixed-income arena, the group is also seeking to gain a foothold...

H.D. Vest Taps National Financial, CSS for Automation.(Brief Article)
January 13, 2003... H.D. Vest, the Irving, Texas-based subsidiary of Wells Fargo, has now automated 90 percent of its trades done through the firm's brokerage business via an online application called Streetscape developed by National Financial, Vest's clearer,...

Credit Suisse to Roll Out Reuters Net-Based Service.(Brief Article)
January 13, 2003... Credit Suisse has tapped Reuters Group Plc to support relationship managers in its private banking business in Zurich, with a two-year deal for 1,500 Reuters Market Monitor Extreme (RMMx) desktop information terminals. RMMx is an...

OnExchange, Future Dynamics Launch Stock Futures Routing.(Brief Article)
January 13, 2003... OnExchange, a provider of clearing and transaction processing technology, and Future Dynamics, a provider of straight-through-processing technology for derivatives, last week launched Linqx, a smart order routing platform for single-stock...

Wilco International Unveils Swift Functionality Tools.(Brief Article)
January 13, 2003... Wilco International has begun the introduction of a series of new tools for its Swift messaging functionality. The new products, which will be available through Wilco's Swift service bureau, will include new work flow monitoring tools for asset...

Random Walk Eyes Buy Side With Boston Office, New GM.
January 13, 2003... Random Walk Computing, a provider of enterprise technology, has opened a Boston office to target opportunities within the investment management community, and appointed William W. Riffert to spearhead Boston regional operations, including...

Singapore Expands Sec Lending Service.
January 13, 2003... The Singapore Exchange is beefing up its securities lending and borrowing service, first launched in early 2002, to allow for open-dated contracts. In open-ended contracts, securities borrowed can be held for an undefined period, subject...

CBOT to Boost Technology.(Brief Article)
January 13, 2003... The Chicago Board of Trade plans to further rely on technology to top its 2002 record volume of 343.8 million contracts. "We are adding more technology to our open auction markets to make them as efficient and low-cost as possible," said...

TradeWeb, Charles River Effort Enters VMU Space.
January 13, 2003... TradeWeb's and Charles River Development's linking their systems to provide an end-to-end straight-through processing (STP) engine for investment firms, set to be announced on Monday, confirms a trend that's been building in the fixed-income...

Japan Passes Customer Identification Law.
January 13, 2003... Japan has recently passed the Law of Identification Confirmation, which codifies existing customer identification guidelines that had previously been recommended by the Japanese Bankers Association. The new law will not have a major impact...

J.P. Morgan Chase Selects Reuters.(Brief Article)
January 13, 2003... J.P. Morgan Chase is rolling out Reuters Group Plc's North American Capital Markets (Nacap) to about 500 to 600 positions, according to sources. The service will replace Moneyline Telerate, those sources said. Reuters relaunched its Nacap...

IDC Purchase Targets Institutions.
January 20, 2003... Interactive Data Corp., which last week signed an agreement to acquire S&P Comstock for $115 million in cash, plans to use the real-time service's datafeed product to target institutions. Bedford, Mass.-based Interactive Data's major...

Datek Probe Closed After SEC Settlement.
January 20, 2003... The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York has closed its investigation of Datek and its former executives, including electronic trading pioneer Joshua Levine, after they reached a settlement with the Securities and Exchange...

GAO to Unveil BCP Report in February.
January 20, 2003... The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) is set to release its wide-ranging business continuity and disaster preparedness report on the financial markets to legislators in mid-February under a 30-day "restrictive period," about two weeks later...

Clearing Crowd: Eurex to launch equities central counterparty in March.
January 20, 2003... Germany will join the crowd of European countries offering central counterparty (CCP) services for equities when Eurex Clearing takes on that long-anticipated role in March with some European banks already announcing interest in joining. ...

Buy Side Cautious on Bond Matching Plans.
January 20, 2003... Although the competition is heating up, a leader has yet to emerge in the race to provide the bond market with electronic matching and trade allocations for straight-through processing (STP), according to buy-side firms. Reaction so far...

European Institutions Increasingly Embracing Outsourcing Agreements.
January 20, 2003... Despite a traditional reluctance to outsource core business functions to third-party vendors, European firms are increasingly looking to such an agreement to cut costs amid this current economic slump, according to a report recently released by...

Nasdaq Searches for New Leaders.
January 20, 2003... At its Jan. 29 meeting, the Nasdaq Board will start looking into a new leadership for the world's largest electronic stock market, faced with tough competition and uncertainty about its exchange status. "Now that [CEO] Wick's [Simmons]...

FIX Group Seeks Executive Director in Reorg.
January 20, 2003... FIX Protocol Ltd. (FPL) plans to hire an executive director as part of the group's reorganization that was launched last September. FPL officials announced the newly created position in meetings last week in New York. There is no timetable...

Reuters Readies New Version of Bridgestation.
January 20, 2003... Reuters Group Plc is readying the latest version of Reuters Bridgestation, version 7.2, which will allow users to pull in their own data. The applications-ActiveX controls with Visual Basic scripting-can be unbundled and run inside other...

Smith Barney Extends Pact.
January 20, 2003... Smith Barney, a unit of Salomon Smith Barney, late last year renewed its contract for SunGard Data Systems' PowerPartner market data terminal for its financial consultants. SunGard declined to comment on the deal and a Salomon Smith Barney...

SIA's New STP Goal: No More Physical Certificates.
January 20, 2003... The Securities Industry Association is turning its straight-through processing efforts to what many pointed out should have been the first step on the road to T+1 settlement when the now-defunct T+1 agenda was launched three years ago, namely...

Financial Insights' Schenck Sees Recovery in '06.
January 20, 2003... IDC last week launched Financial Insights, a research firm focusing on financial technologies headed by Michon Schenck, former president and COO of Financial Fusion. The new firm, based in Framingham, Mass., combines IDC's acquisition of...

Outsourcing, Linux in Focus.
January 20, 2003... Financial Insights is releasing this week a list of top 10 initiatives that will have key strategic importance to capital markets this year. The list falls into three categories. Measures driven primarily by the overall requirement for a lower...

Deloitte & Touche Sees Tight Budgets for Industry.
January 20, 2003... Deloitte & Touche, one of the main U.S consultancy firms, sees more belt-tightening measures in store for the financial industry as efficiency may be the key to survival in a difficult environment. "The velocity of change and challenge...

Citibank, HSBC, Standard Chartered Win QFII Status.(qualified foreign institutional investors)
January 20, 2003... Citibank, HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank have joined six local Chinese banks in winning approval from the country's central bank, the People's Bank of China, as custodians for qualified foreign institutional investors (QFII) to process trades...

Treasury Issues SAR Proposal.(suspicious activity report)(Brief Article)
January 20, 2003... The U.S. Department of the Treasury last week issued a notice of proposed rulemaking that would require mutual funds to report suspicious activities to Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). The filing follows a...

Sell-Side OMS, Direct-Access Tech Line Blurring.
January 20, 2003... The sell-side Order Management System (OMS) vendor landscape will shift significantly in the near future as market-makers integrate internal solutions with best-of-breed external products to develop OMSs that are best customized to the unique...

Buy Side Lags on FIX as Europe Embraces Protocol.
January 20, 2003... While FIX has become the de facto standard for the equities market in Europe, the buy side continues to lag far behind the sell side in adopting the protocol. That is the conclusion of a study of European institutions released earlier this...

Crest Launches E-Voting Service.
January 20, 2003... The U.K.'s central securities depository, Crest, will today launch its long-awaited automated proxy voting service, allowing individuals and financial instittution participants to cast their votes for their clients through the depository, which...

Archipelago to Focus on OTCBB.
January 20, 2003... The Archipelago ECN will remain in business but only for over-the-counter bulletin board (OTCBB) trading once the electronic communications network completes its transformation into the ArcaEx exchange by the end of March. "ArcaEx will...

International Bank of Taipai Connects to SmartStream.
January 20, 2003... SmartStream Technologies has been tapped by the International Bank of Taipei to automate the bank's Nostro reconciliation process through its Corona software. IBT is SmartStream's first client in Taiwan and as that country's largest...

ADP Links BPS to ATS Risk Management System.
January 20, 2003... ADP Brokerage Services, a division of Automatic Data Processing, has signed an alliance with Advanced Trading Solutions to offer ATS' risk management work flow and reporting tool, RiskMon, to ADP's back-office outsourcing clients on an...

Reuters Linking BridgeStation Xtra and Reuters Plus for IM.
January 20, 2003... Reuters Messaging, the vendor's new instant messaging service, has been integrated with Reuters' 3000 Xtra and Reuters BridgeStation desktop services, and is being integrated with Reuters Plus. More than 225,000 financial professionals in...

Netik Wins Croatian Clients With Swift Implementation.
January 20, 2003... Netik has entered the Croatian market, implementing TurboSwift at Zagorska banka, Banka Brod and Splitsko-dalmatinska. The latest release of TurboSwift-which was sold to the three Croatian banks by Netik's distributor in that...

SGX Promotes Open Interface.(Brief Article)
January 20, 2003... The Singapore Exchange last week said effective Feb. 1 it would offer partial rebates for one year use of SGXAccess, an open interface technology which allows member firms to trade in Singapore from anywhere in the world through their own...

Icap Inches Ahead in Deal to Buy BrokerTec.(Brief Article)
January 20, 2003... Icap, the world's largest voice broker, last week reiterated its plans to purchase e-bond trading platform BrokerTec, squelching concerns that a U.S. Department of Justice investigation would torpedo the deal. Owned by 14 firms,...

CEO Out at Currenex.(Brief Article)
January 20, 2003... Lori Mirek late last month left her position as CEO of Currenex, the B2B foreign exchange platform, market sources said on Friday. According to those sources, Mirek is being replaced by Clifford Lewis, who formerly held senior executive...

McKinley Leaving Merrill.(John McKinley Jr. to resign from Merrill Lynch)
January 27, 2003... John McKinley Jr., EVP, head of global technology & services and CTO at Merrill Lynch, is leaving the firm at the end of next month and will be replaced by John W. Cummings, COO of global technology & services. McKinley will be leaving "to...

Reuters to Integrate Deutsche's Autobahn.(Reuters Group PLC to offer Deutsche Bank fixed-income Web Autobahn trading platform)
January 27, 2003... Marking its first fixed-income implementation of an integrated execution and market data platform, Reuters Group Plc today is announcing an agreement with Deutsche Bank to make the Deutsche Bank fixed-income Web Autobahn trading platform...

Border Crossing: Canada's FMC applies to SEC to offer U.S. VMU.(Financial Models Co. applies to Securities and Exchange Commission to offer virtual matching utility)
January 27, 2003... Toronto-headquartered Financial Models Co. has thrown its hat in the ring to provide a U.S. virtual matching utility (VMU), applying to the Securities and Exchange Commission for approval for its pending FMCNet2 service, company officials...

ISE's One-Size-Fits-All' Auto-Execution.(International Securities Exchange)
January 27, 2003... The International Securities Exchange (ISE) last Wednesday made auto-execution available to all participants of its electronic options market, putting orders from customers, member firms, broker-dealers and market-makers on equal footing for...

Trace Shows Promise for Corporate Market.
January 27, 2003... While it'll likely take years to see the effects on price transparency of Trace, NASD's corporate bond data reporting system, and more time to determine if the near real-time publishing of information will grow the sluggish market for corporate...

Big Board Steadfast In Its Opposition To Pay-to-Play'.
January 27, 2003... The Securities and Exchange Commission should soon have a new chairman, with Congress likely to hold confirmation hearings for President Bush's nominee, William Donaldson, in the near future. Market structure issues will likely require...

Depository Mergers: Costly Goal?
January 27, 2003... While consolidation of depository systems has become the securities industry's mantra in reducing risk and processing costs, one analyst is bucking the trend. Swen Werner, a capital markets policy analyst with Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt,...

Eagle Unveils Reference Manager.(Brief Article)
January 27, 2003... Eagle Investment Systems, a subsidiary of Mellon Trust, last week officially unveiled a new stand-alone reference data management software package called Reference Manager, which is designed to streamline the process of gathering, cleaning and...