Securities Industry News articles from January 2005

Securities Industry News archives from January 2005

Exchanges Changing Hands.(stock exchanges)
January 10, 2005... Conventional wisdom has it that 2005 will be a year of heightened merger and acquisition activity. And if the first week of January is any indication, the conventional wisdom may actually be right this time. While Archipelago's $51 million...

Users Unite to Contest Cusip Licensing Fee.(Cusip Service Bureau)
January 10, 2005... The Information Providers User Group (IPUG), a London data-management trade group, may have yielded on the legal issues in its fight against Cusip Service Bureau's licensing fees for access to, and redistribution of, North American securities...

On the Ground In China.(keep out foreign investors )
January 10, 2005... The Great Wall of China is coming down. Piece by piece, policies that served to keep out foreign investors and securities firms are being torn down and replaced by giant "welcome" signs. As part of this process of opening, China is...

Pastimes and Progress.(securities industry)
January 10, 2005... A lot of publications make a choice around this time of year. Do they theme their first issue of the New Year around predictions and forecasts for the months ahead? Or do they look back and produce one of those "best and worst of the year gone...

Asset Management BPO: The Second Wave.(business process outsourcing)
January 10, 2005... As the first wave of post-execution operational outsource providers struggle with rationalizing multiple operating models-all of them costly-a second wave of providers is emerging to service the volume of middle-tier asset managers. The deals...

Rivals Bid for a Reticent London.
January 10, 2005... The first years of a new century have been anything but placid for the London Stock Exchange (LSE)-an institution where tradition had always bested change. First there was the drawn out and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to merge with the...

Germany OKs Citi's Hedge Fund Kag'.(Citigroup)
January 10, 2005... Germany's financial supervisory authority has granted Citigroup the first license under the Investment Modernization Act to act on behalf of hedge funds through a structure known as a master "Kapitalanlagegesellschaft," or master "Kag." ...

Swift Releases Blueprint for EU Communication Protocol.
January 10, 2005... As Swift released its long-awaited blueprint for a common communications protocol last week-a protocol intended to remove the first of fifteen barriers to achieving efficient cross-border clearing and settlement in Europe, identified by the...

Euroclear Restructuring Draws Fire.
January 10, 2005... Last week, Euroclear finally implemented a restructuring-first announced over a year ago-aimed at squelching market concerns about operational risk and cross-subsidization of its local depositories. Will it be enough? Some of Europe's...

Annual Report 2005.(http://www.thomsonmedia.com http://www.securitiesindustry.com )(Brief Article)
January 10, 2005... `Change is one thing, progress is another," Bertrand Russell once said. "Change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy." Or as a wise old business editor put it, "Markets are all about differences of opinion among human...

Asset-Class Warfare: With technological advances, complex investment instruments go mainstream.(futures market)
January 10, 2005... Traditional equities exchanges ruled the 1990s, but in the first years of the new century, the limelight has shifted to derivatives, and industry players are predicting that 2005 could prove to be the most significant year ever for the futures...

Market Centers: In Electronic Trading Arms Race.(New York Stock Exchange Inc.)
January 10, 2005... The U.S. market centers finished out 2004 with a flurry of announcements that celebrated both missions accomplished and points of departure for new strategic direction. The New York Stock Exchange recently announced what it described as a...

The Clampdown: AML rulebook will continue to evolve as Patriot game gets serious.
January 10, 2005... It's been three-and-a-half years since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and with the absence of further attacks on U.S. soil, the public sense of urgency has begun to wane. On the surface, the "new normal" looks and feels...

Opening Clearing Up: Coming year will test innovative business models from players on the margins.(securities processing industry)
January 10, 2005... Though broker-dealers have long grumbled about their third-party trade-processing engines, little new competition has developed to challenge the processing industry status-until now. Recent developments, however, may signal an impending opening...

ESpeed Hits a Bump: Exec, experts mull lessons of retreat from price improvement.
January 17, 2005... ESpeed's recent announcement that it would abandon its price-improvement program is further proof of how razor-thin spreads have become, and how little room for price improvement there is in an electronic marketplace. And now the once-proud...

Basel II Brings Choice, Uncertainty to Securities Lenders.(Bank for International Settlements regulations)
January 17, 2005... The Basel II accords may offer a carrot to securities lending agents-reducing the amount of regulatory capital they must set aside for credit risk-but it comes with a stick: a lot more work. In short, no pain no gain. The administrative...

SROs Play to Empty Seats.(self-regulatory organizations, compliance costs management)
January 17, 2005... As broker-dealers look for ways to cut mounting compliance costs, demand for exchange memberships is in the dumps, so self-regulatory organizations are beginning several streamlining measures to address constituents' compliance complaints. ...

Time to Get Technical.(London Stock Exchange PLC merger negotiations, Deutsche Bourse, Euronext N.V.)
January 17, 2005... This past week, the separate meetings held by the London Stock Exchange (LSE) with its two suitors, the Deutsche Bourse and Euronext, entered a new phase. For weeks the talks have focused on the pounds and euros of a potential deal-purchase...

Smaller Banks Will Be the Winners With Basel II.(Basel Committee on Banking Supervision standards, risk management method)
January 17, 2005... In 1998, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision began to work on updating the international capital measurement and capital standards first set out in the original 1988 accord. The goal was to take advantage of the latest advances in risk...

FIX Partnership Spans Globe, Trade Life Cycle.(FIX Protocol Ltd., Cameron Systems, Greenline Technologies)
January 17, 2005... In what may be another sign of contraction in the market for FIX engines-and new competition for the certification strategy being pursued by FIX Protocol Ltd. (FPL)-Australian FIX developer Cameron Systems is partnering with Chicago-based...

Linedata-FMC Deal Bogs Down in Legal Challenge.(Linedata Services, Financial Models Co., Stamos Katotakis)
January 17, 2005... The battle between France's Linedata and Financial Models Co. (FMC) chief executive Stamos Katotakis for ownership of the Toronto-headquartered financial technology shop veered into a legal quagmire last week. FMC's board of directors has...

Greece Reforms Trade Confirmations.(Central Securities Depository)
January 17, 2005... Greece's Central Securities Depository (CSD) will extend its deadline for accepting confirmations of settlement instructions from local custodian banks by two-and-a-half hours, as part of a broad-reaching regulatory initiative to reduce the...

Calls for a Paperless U.K. Market.(certificates, European Securities Forum regulations)
January 17, 2005... The European Securities Forum (ESF), the trade association of European securities processing professionals, is taking yet another step toward harmonizing clearance and settlement practices in the European Union-lobbying for doing away with...

Annual Report 2005.
January 17, 2005... The second installment of our annual report takes its theme from this week's commentary, "Time to Get Technical" (see page 4), as our reporters sketch some of the issues we expect to spend a lot of ink coloring in this year. Standards editor...

A Year to Unifi & FIX: Detente and a new message development scheme preoccupy the standards-bearers.(International Standards Organization)
January 17, 2005... Two pervasive-and paradoxical-trends in the messaging space may come to a head in the New Year, as the tendency of individual users to create ad hoc messages to meet immediate business needs collides with an expanding industry's long-term need...

Marked Market: In the aftermath of Reuters-Telerate deal, waiting for the regulatory shoe to drop.(Reuters Group PLC)
January 17, 2005... In the realm of market data, 2004 may be best remembered for the grand finale: Reuters' acquisition of former nemesis Telerate, ending a contentious rivalry that saw Reuters threaten to boot Telerate off its St. Louis ticker plant (Securities...

Price, Processing and Progress: SEC-watching is all the rage, but clout and computation might ultimately have more to do with market structure and order flow in 2005.(Securities and Exchange Commission )
January 17, 2005... There's a specter haunting the industry: the specter of Regulation NMS. Still, no matter what adjustments the Securities and Exchange Commission makes to the national market system to bring it in line with the demands of a global business...

Yes to NMS, No to Virtual Order Book.(National Market System, Security and Exchange Commission's regulations)
January 17, 2005... There were few surprises when the New York Stock Exchange filed its official comment this week to the reproposed' Regulation NMS-the Security and Exchange Commission's plan to modernize the outdated rules governing the national market system....

A Case of Timing: Southwest slap sheds light on fund reforms.(Southwest Securities Group Inc.)
January 24, 2005... Just as discussions between the regulators and the industry over how to prevent late trading and market timing in mutual funds have slowed to a crawl, the case of Southwest Securities--hit hard by regulators on Jan. 10 for failing to prevent...

Trade Groups Join Patent Wars.(Futures Industry Association, Managed Funds Association)
January 24, 2005... As they close ranks in preparation for entering the legal fray over a key technology patent, futures industry players and others are weighing how best to foil the opposition: by meeting it head-on or using insurgent technology to outflank it....

Does Compliance Pay?(financial services)
January 24, 2005... It's a pitch you hear so often nowadays that it seems like common sense: Compliance automation is a source of competitive advantage, not a drag on the bottom line. But is it actually true? How does it work? Let's start by looking at the...

Getting to the Global.(financing)
January 24, 2005... George W. Bush was sworn in for a second term as the President of the United States last Thursday, Jan. 20, 2005. His inaugural speech--as such speeches always are--was designed to inspire and to lay out, in grand and unspecific terms, the...

Mutual Fund Measures Stop Short of Short-Short.(Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997)
January 24, 2005... A number of the reforms proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission to address the problems in the mutual fund industry that emerged from the market timing scandal are still being challenged and debated. A look back at the history of the...

XBRL: Stalled? Or Slow but Steady?(extensible business reporting language)
January 24, 2005... The electronic reporting of financial data is expected to increase this year, driven by new technologies and more regulatory demands. The sheer numbers may not yet be impressive, but the Securities and Exchange Commission's voluntary extensible...

Johannesburg Exchange Plans IT Overhaul.(JSE Securities Exchange South Africa, Clearing Corp., FRI Corp. )
January 24, 2005... The JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) has tapped software from Chicago's Clearing Corp. (CC) and Toronto's FRI Corp. as part of a $33 million, two-year project led by global consultancy Accenture to replace much of its IT infrastructure. The...

Reputation, Reputation, Reputation': AML in the U.K.(anti-money laundering)
January 24, 2005... U.K. financial institutions are forging ahead with the implementation of anti-money laundering (AML) systems, driven by a desire to avoid the reputational risk of a money laundering scandal and mindful of the heavy fines that regulators have...

Annual Report 2005.(Brief Article)
January 24, 2005... The third (and nearly final) installment of our Annual Report spans the Atlantic and assesses the role of technology as an enabler of regulatory efficiency--and vice versa, as veteran correspondent Shane Kite would say, making a persuasive case...

Regulation Is the Mother of Invention.
January 24, 2005... Difficult as it might be for some CEOs to see, the gridlocked regulatory street has its sunny side, say analysts and industry players. Regulation looks to be a major driver of significant operational change in the industry this year, and when...

EU Pluribus Unum: Many matters still to settle on the way to one market.(European Union)
January 24, 2005... If 2004 was any indication of the progress that's been made toward the utopian vision of a Europe where all securities processing agents operate under the same rules, this could well be the "year of harmonization" in European clearing and...

Clearstream Stays the Course: American-born CEO projects serenity in a stormy European scene.(chief executive officers)
January 31, 2005... As archrival Euroclear promotes consolidation and harmonization as the way to reduce clearing and settlement costs in Europe, Clearstream International seems content to "stick to its knitting." According to Clearstream's new chief...

Real-Time Milestone for Fixed Income.
January 31, 2005... Today, broker-dealers begin observing a rule requiring municipal trading data to be reported within 15 minutes of trade execution as the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) officially flipped the switch on its real-time reporting...

Sun Tries GNU Tactic.(Sun Microsystems Inc.)(Gnu's Not Unix)
January 31, 2005... In a move designed to attract swarms of academics, hobbyists, corporate developers and other volunteer programmers to the Solaris fold, Sun Microsystems has decided to open the source code of its flagship operating system and donate 1,600...

Thain in Davos.(New York Stock Exchange chairman and chief executive, John Thain)
January 31, 2005... New York Stock Exchange chairman and CEO John Thain took a high-profile bow at last week's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, co-chairing the annual gathering of global business and political leaders alongside Microsoft's Bill Gates,...

Has Your Clearing Firm Become A "Full-Service Airline"?
January 31, 2005... When most of us hear the phrase "full-service airline" we think of the major hub-and-spoke carriers that no longer truly provide "full service." In fact, the phrase "full-service airline" is a misnomer; the customer usually pays more and...

SEC Staffs Up To Tackle Ambitious Agenda in 2005.(Securities and Exchange Commission)
January 31, 2005... Agency veterans are quick to point out that talk of the Securities and Exchange Commission's "annual agenda" is something of a misnomer. Unlike Congress, the SEC is always in session and never in recess. What does change from time to time...

Hogan Hires Heavyweight, Readies Hybrid.(John Hogan hires Joe Barra for managing hybrid offerings)
January 31, 2005... As it gears up to offer the first cradle-to-grave back-office solution for growing broker-dealers, Automatic Data Processing (ADP) has pulled over an architect of TD Waterhouse's clearing and capital markets divisions to head up its clearing...

FMC Boardroom Battle Goes to Court.(Financial Models Co)
January 31, 2005... Economic logic would dictate that a cash and stock offer of C$14.50 a share for a company should trump a C$12.20 all-cash bid. Nevertheless, which offer can be entertained is precisely the issue now being adjudicated by the Ontario Securities...

Hedge Funds Hire Front-Office Help.(DPM)
January 31, 2005... In the hedge fund administration game, what counts are skills, not size, say market players, citing Mellon Corp.'s recent acquisition of DPM's $30 billion book as the latest case in point. Granted, Mellon is a relative latecomer. Bank of...

Dragon Tag Takes XBRL to the Office.(Rivet Software launches product for Microsoft Office users)
January 31, 2005... Rivet Software, a Denver-based XBRL vendor, is rolling out Dragon Tag document mark-up product to users of Microsoft Office. PR Newswire, which provides electronic news distribution to some 40,000 corporate, government and other customers...

ECNs Ponder Changing Rules of the Game.(electronic communications networks)
January 31, 2005... As the Securities and Exchange Commission works out the final version of its Regulation NMS rules, comments have been pouring in from industry players lobbying furiously to keep the changes from impacting their own peculiar way of making a...

Grids Try Muscling In On SMPs.(symmetric multiprocessors)
January 31, 2005... There are days when you simply need a very, very, big machine--a machine with four, or even sixteen, processors driving its brain. These machines, known as symmetric multiprocessors (SMPs), are some of the most expensive equipment on Wall...

ABS Rules Drive 21st-Century Tech.(asset-backed securities)
January 31, 2005... The $1.8 trillion asset-backed securities (ABS) market may touch off a mini-boom in tech spending as participants seek to comply with the disclosure requirements of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Reg AB. Internet-based road shows,...

On The Record.(quotes)(Brief Article)
January 31, 2005... Different countries have responded differently to the problems in the world's securities markets, but what's significant is that there has been a global recognition of the need for reforms. This is critical, because simply fixing problems in...