Securities Industry News articles from March 2003

Securities Industry News archives from March 2003

Nasdaq Faces Arca Quandary.(Nasdaq managing ArcaEx and SuperMontage technology platforms)
March 3, 2003... Nasdaq is engaged in difficult negotiations about connectivity between SuperMontage, its new platform designed as a closed pool of liquidity, and ArcaEx, the trading arm of the Pacific Exchange (PCX), that is trying to capitalize on its...

BMA Springs STP Hub Plan Amid Skepticism.(Bond Market Association request for a message hub)
March 3, 2003... The Bond Market Association (BMA) released last Wednesday a request for information (RFI) on building a trade matching and allocations straight-through processing "message hub," despite earlier complaints from STP vendors offering similar...

Tech Turnover: Nymex shuffles execs as XML platform gains traction.(David Li leaves New York Mercantile Exchange)
March 3, 2003... The New York Mercantile Exchange has made changes in its technology division, which is developing Nymex XML, the exchange's XML-based settlement platform that is expected to be adopted by energy and other commodities traders in the derivatives...

Thomson Recommits to Portia Business.(Thomson Financial recommits to Portia portfolio management system)
March 3, 2003... Thomson Financial, whose Portia portfolio management system had been on the block for some time, has taken the product off the market and has recommitted to the system. "We did conduct a strategic review of our global investment...

Rolfe & Nolan to Go Private Via Management Buyout.
March 3, 2003... The potential three-way fight for struggling back-office systems provider Rolfe & Nolan was nipped in the bud last week, when a management-endorsed bid to privatize the company won approval from a majority of shareholders. An R&N spokesman...

Government role could help financial markets recover from disasters.
March 3, 2003... In a report issued by the U.K. Treasury last week, the organization asked for industry comment on proposed business-continuity plans in the event of market disruptions. In the following excerpts from the report, Treasury said while the private...

Mixed Messages on Market Data Rebates.
March 3, 2003... When it comes to dealing with market data revenue sharing programs, the Securities and Exchange Commission seems to be of two contrary minds, depending on whether it's revenue from NYSE and Amex-listed securities or revenue from Nasdaq...

SunGard Launches Automated Recall Service.(SunGard Securities Finance, response to Securities Industry Association's standards)(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... SunGard Securities Finance, a unit of SunGard Data Services, last week became the first vendor to publicly announce the launch of an automated recall management service (Arms) in response to the Securities Industry Association's recommendations...

Primex Gets Permanent SEC Approval, Brass Link.(U.S. SEC approves Nasdaq's Primex online auctioning system)
March 3, 2003... The Securities and Exchange Commission has given its permanent approval to Primex, the electronic auction system operated by Nasdaq under a two-year pilot program. The SEC approved Primex despite objections from the New York Stock...

Goeller Steps Down as Lead on ISO XML Working Group.
March 3, 2003... John Goeller last month resigned as convenor of the ISO XML Working Group 10, the standards organization that is converging trade data standards around the ISO 15022 repository and the extensible markup language (XML). He is being replaced...

Omgeo Defends Equities Turf as Bonds Remain Wide Open.
March 3, 2003... The move to a no-fee pricing structure for asset managers by Omgeo effectively shut down efforts by order management system (OMS) vendors to move into the central matching utility (CMU) space in the United States for equities trading under a...

Fair & Clear Speaks Loud and Clear on Euroclear.(banks object to encroachment by Euroclear)
March 3, 2003... A group of Europe's largest agent banks, which have come together to lobby against international depository Euroclear's continuing encroachment into their lines of business, issued their first joint position paper last week. Released by...

Fame, Tap Target Reference Data.(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... Fame Information Services has teamed up with Tap Ventures to deliver a combined reference data management and securities master database service for the financial industry. The agreement calls for the integration of Fame's new data...

Kx Systems Nabs J.P. Morgan for Database.
March 3, 2003... Palo Alto, Calif.-based data management provider Kx Systems said it has won a mandate from J.P. Morgan Chase to install its Kx/tick database to access real-time information for its global equity operations in London. The deal represents...

Bank of New York Wins Singapore Insurer's Biz.(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... The Bank of New York confirmed last week that it has won the master custody business of Singapore Great Eastern Life from Deutsche Bank and an undisclosed local agent bank. BNY will perform investment accounting, performance measurement and...

Wall Street Systems Assumes Deutsche Bank's SOCX Stake.
March 3, 2003... Wall Street Systems has agreed to buy Deutsche Bank's 50 percent interest in the Settlement Operations and Clearing Exchange (SOCX). SOCX, an outsourcing venture that provides users with settlement and clearing services, was launched in 2001 as...

Ubitrade Promotes Wicart To Head U.S. Operations.(meshed brief)
March 3, 2003... Ubitrade, a trading, risk management and back-office derivatives software vendor, has named Eric Wicart managing director of its U.S. operations based in Chicago. Wicart first joined Ubitrade, formerly known as ATSM, in June 1995 as head...

Berndale Makes Strides in Tough Australian Market.
March 3, 2003... Berndale Securities, a wholly owned subsidiary of Merrill Lynch, is pacing the embryonic field of correspondent clearers in Australia. As the only provider of full-service, balance sheet clearing, Berndale has already signed eight firms as...

Hello, HAL: Computer Systems That Fix Themselves.(concept overview)
March 3, 2003... When I first heard that some computer vendors were working on "self-healing" systems, my first thought was: Where do I sign up? While working on this article, my Outlook crashed three times, my Explorer crashed twice, and, at least once, I...

The Four Stages of Autonomic Computing.(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... Stage 1: Computer, Know Thyself! Before a system can manage itself, it has to know what's out there. A virtual map of the computer system needs to be created, with accurate and up-to-date information about hardware and software...

SIA Objects to Commission Rule for E-Mail Storage.
March 3, 2003... The Securities Industry Association is asking the Securities and Exchange Commission to change its Electronic Storage Rule 17a-4(f), which governs the storage of e-mails, among other things. The SIA objects to the SEC requirement that firms...

NSCC Phases in Real-Time Matching System for Bonds.
March 3, 2003... The National Securities Clearing Corp. (NSCC), a subsidiary of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC), will begin phasing in a new real-time trade matching (RTTM) service for corporate and municipal bonds as well as unit investment trusts...

Schwab Unveils New Biz Model.(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... Schwab Capital Markets this week launched the Schwab Liquidity Network (SLN), the broker's ECN-type answer to the structural changes and tough market conditions that have crushed industry profits. "All small orders are handled completely...

DST Expands Risk Management With Askari Buy.(DST International buys Askari)
March 3, 2003... Technology provider DST International's purchase last week of risk management software vendor Askari, a unit of State Street Corp., allows DST to expand its front-to-back-office product suite. DST-which will rebrand Askari's TruView under...

Ex-EFA Execs Form New Firm.(Brief Article)
March 3, 2003... While Australian software vendor and global transfer agent Computershare will officially take over the intellectual property rights (IPR) to EFA Software's technology later this month, some of EFA's top development team will not be joining the...

Bloomberg Blasts NYSE Again.
March 3, 2003... Bloomberg, which filed a comment letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission in January objecting to the New York Stock Exchange's plans for a new product called Liquidity Quote, filed another one late last month that followed up on the...

CFTC, SEC Define Roles.(Commodity Futures Trading Commission, SEC prepare to define roles)
March 10, 2003... The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission are getting ready to spell out which of the two is the primary regulator in various areas of single-stock futures trading, the new U.S. capital market that made...

Market Data Cuts: Five top execs on SIA panel have left jobs.(Securities Industry Association sees executives leave)
March 10, 2003... Five top market data executives have lost their Wall Street jobs in the past several months, as the firms continued to cut headcount and costs. The executives-all members of the market data subcommittee of the Securities Industry Association's...

SEC Voting Requirements Generate New Fund Tools.
March 10, 2003... The Securities and Exchange Commission's requirements, effective August 2004, that U.S. mutual funds keep track of how they vote at annual meetings and be able to disclose the votes to investors on the funds' Web sites, has prompted several of...

Nasdaq's Single-Regulator Plan Fizzles.
March 10, 2003... Several exchanges last week shot down Nasdaq's proposal to adopt a common set of rules to trade Nasdaq stocks under a single regulator of multiple venues, industry sources said. "Members of the UTP [unlisted trading privileges] committee...

GemSoup Offers FpML Tools to ISDA Members.(company offering financial products markup language (FpML) tools to members of International Swaps and Derivatives Association)
March 10, 2003... Three months after its formation, GemSoup Llc is rolling out a suite of development tools for the over-the-counter derivatives market that will perform matching, conversion and data archive functions while supporting the financial products...

In Disaster scenario, nasdaq would come to big board's Aid.
March 10, 2003... For three days following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, nobody knew for sure whether Verizon Communications could restore connectivity between the New York Stock Exchange and Wall Street. Flooded and seriously...

Swift ISO 15022 XML Move Ahead.(Swift strove to shift its customers from its former 7775 message standard to tag-centric ISO 15022)
March 10, 2003... About a year ago, Swift's four-year-old push to move its customers from its old 7775 message standard to the tag-centric ISO 15022 seemed to be losing steam. Swift had been as hardnosed as its deadline, demanding that both the send and receive...

Citigroup's Jaffee Leaves Top GSS Post for Sales Role.(Sandy Jaffee leaves as head of Citigroup Global Securities Services)
March 10, 2003... As part of a shakeup of Citigroup's transactions services operations, Sandy Jaffee, head of Citigroup Global Securities Services (GSS) for the past eight years, will be transferred to a new sales role within the bank's Global Transaction...

Risk Managers Weigh Iraq War Effects on Bond Mart.(Panel Discussion)
March 10, 2003... With the drumbeat of war reaching a crescendo and vast uncertainty over how the financial markets will respond even if an Iraq conflict is over quickly, a group of 50 risk managers met in New York City last Thursday to discuss possible...

New Canadian OTC Market Gets Regulatory Green Light.
March 10, 2003... The Ontario Securities Commission, Canada's largest and most important provincial regulator, gave the green light last week to the Canadian Trading and Quotation System (CNQ) to operate a new over-the-counter market. The approval sets the stage...

Mercator Advances ERP, Swift IP Migration.(European Investment Bank chooses Mercator Software to do enterprise resource planning systems integration)
March 10, 2003... The European Investment Bank (EIB) has picked middleware vendor Mercator Software to perform its enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems integration, using its new SwiftNet migration package for banks moving to the Swift IP network. ...

McBlain: Market Data Changes Lead to More Questions.(Leo McBlain steps down as vp at ADP Brokerage Services Group)(Interview)
March 10, 2003... Last month Leo McBlain, a founder of the Financial Information Forum and the Financial Information Services Division, (now part of the Software & Information Industry Association), stepped down from his role as VP at ADP Brokerage Services...

E-trading Surge redraws the Map for options Mart.
March 10, 2003... When the International Securities Exchange (ISE) made its debut in May 2000, few anticipated that the first U.S. electronic options exchange would have a major impact on an industry where complex orders were best worked on a floor. Three...

Global Uncertainty Driving Futures Growth.
March 10, 2003... This year is shaping up as another strong one for futures markets, while economic and geopolitical uncertainty that led to last year's record volumes will likely continue over the coming months. Volume on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange...

FIX Reorg Set; Executive Director Search Continues.(Fix Protocol completes reorganization as it looks for executive director)(Brief Article)
March 10, 2003... FIX Protocol Ltd. (FPL) announced last week that the reorganization begun last year is now complete, while the search for an executive director continues. "We have received a significant response from a number of very qualified...

Charles River OMS Connects to IRESS.(Brief Article)
March 10, 2003... Charles River Development said last week that it has linked its order management system, the Charles River Trading System, to IRESS, an order routing system connecting Australian firms to the cash and derivatives exchanges. IRESS, owned by...

Syntegra to Add Web Services to SettleNet Offerings.
March 10, 2003... Syntegra, BT's consulting and systems integration business, plans to add a Web services management layer to SettleNet, its IP network linking financial firms to U.K. depository Crest. The initiative, which is part of a raft of Web services...

Nasdaq to Make Opening Changes.(Brief Article)
March 10, 2003... Nasdaq hopes to provide the premarket opening interest and a single opening price by year-end, according to Adena Friedman, EVP data products at Nasdaq. Speaking at a panel discussion held by Thomson Financial last week, Friedman also said...

SunGard Expands U.K. Disaster-Recovery Site.
March 10, 2003... SunGard Availability Services, the disaster recovery unit of SunGard Data Systems, last week said it will invest GBP15 million ($24 million) to expand its backup site in Hounslow, a London suburb, next fall as part of a broader plan to...

Japan Tackles Equities Dematerialization.
March 10, 2003... Japan's securities regulators are considering amendments to the country's commercial code, which would immobilize dematerialized certificates for the equities market. The move could take place in the fourth quarter of next year, if the new...

ANZ Picks FMC's Pacer for Investment Ops Biz.(ANZ Custodian deploys Pacer package from Financial Models Co.)
March 10, 2003... ANZ Custodian, a division of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, has implemented Financial Models Co.'s Pacer package for a new buy-side outsourcing business for portfolio investment and accounting. "FMC's offering was unique, as it...

Amex Boosts Auto-Ex Size For Top Options Classes.
March 10, 2003... The American Stock Exchange last week raised the size limits for auto-execution in the most actively traded option classes. Effective March 3, orders of up to 250 contracts in the 50 most active option classes and orders of up to 100...

InfoDyne Teams With Telekurs On Market Data Agreement.(Brief Article)
March 10, 2003... InfoDyne, a Park Ridge, Ill.-based provider of ticker plant, trade order routing and middleware technology, has integrated Telekurs Financial's MDFstream datafeed into its ticker plant. The arrangement allows Telekurs to sell its data directly...

Bloomberg Rolls Out Algo Risk Offering.
March 10, 2003... Bloomberg and Algorithmics have teamed up to develop Algo Risk, a market and trading risk solution for Bloomberg's trade and portfolio order management system users. There are about 600 to 650 firms worldwide using Bloomberg TOMS and POMS. ...

First Continental Trading Is Ubitrade's 1st U.S. Client.
March 10, 2003... Ubitrade has nabbed its first U.S. client winning Chicago's First Continental Trading Group from SunGard. FCT has replaced SunGard's GMI back-office derivatives platform with Ubitrade's Futures and Options system. Futures and Options will...

Relegance Wins Business At Merrill Lynch Equities.(Brief Article)
March 10, 2003... Relegance Corp. said last week that it has implemented a customized version of its Relegance FirstTrack and Knowledge hub platforms at Merrill Lynch's institutional equity sales and trading group. The software packages manage the flow of a...

Swiss American Securities Taps Radianz for Network.(Brief Article)
March 10, 2003... Swiss American Securities (SASI), a broker-dealer and custodian subsidiary of Credit Suisse Group, has inked a deal with Radianz to use the vendor's Radianznet platform. About 90 percent of SASI's clients are in Europe and Asia, and they...

Thomson Taps Gandy for Sales.
March 10, 2003... Thomson Financial has named David Gandy, formerly with Reuters and Nasdaq Europe, as managing director of the global sales and account management team in Europe. Thomson Financial's global sales and account group is responsible for 50 of...

Fahnestock Renews Data Deal.(Brief Article)
March 10, 2003... Fahnestock & Co. has renewed and extended its agreement with Reuters Group Plc for Reuters Plus U.S. equity workstations. Under the four-year deal, Fahnestock is expected to take 2,250 positions. That total includes 1,000 positions at...

Karsh Joins UNX as President.(Brief Article)
March 10, 2003... Burbank, Calif.-based UNX, which provides an institutional trading platform for basket and single-stock trading, has hired William Karsh as president and senior managing director. Karsh, who most recently was COO of Embarcadero Securities,...

FlexTrade Rolls Out OpenBook.(Brief Article)
March 10, 2003... FlexTrade Systems, a trading, routing and order management system provider whose customers include buy-side firms, sell-side program trading desks and hedge funds, is now providing its clients with access to the New York Stock Exchange's...

Eurex Keeps U.S. Options Open.
March 17, 2003... Swiss-German powerhouse Eurex is keeping its options open regarding its U.S. strategy, which may involve registering as one or more U.S. derivatives exchanges or acquiring a U.S. exchange. "We are keeping all our options open," Eurex CEO...

Point of Reference: Access International, IBM target data management.
March 17, 2003... Data management house Access International is in discussions with IBM about creating a new industry-owned service for reference data management, company executives said last week. Arthur Thomas, former head of global operations for Merrill...

Nasdaq Pushes SEC To Rule on Its Status.
March 17, 2003... Nasdaq is stepping up its lobbying efforts in a bid to get the Securities and Exchange Commission to finally tackle its exchange registration application, stranded in regulatory limbo for the past 18 months, industry sources said. "Nothing...

Pre-Merger Pershing Nabs AIG Unit.(American General Securities decided to proceed with conversion to Pershing)
March 17, 2003... Despite the prospect of its new clearing firm combining with another clearer, and the complications that often accompany such mergers, American General Securities decided to proceed with its conversion to Pershing and had its first trade date...

Wall Street Firms Cope With Surge in IM Traffic.(Instant messaging)
March 17, 2003... About 18 months ago, equities trader Melanie Vangopoulos at New York City-based Burlington Capital Markets started to using free instant messaging to chat with friends, clients and colleagues. Your traders probably did, too. Sure, there's...

Real-time matching for real-world derivatives trades.
March 17, 2003... While much of the industry has been focused on the use of central matching services for equities, little has so far been said about derivatives. The following article, written exclusively for Securities Industry News by Lester Wigler, president...

Project Seeks Terror Clues in Marts.(Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contracts with Neoteric and NetExchange)
March 17, 2003... The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), the Defense Department's well-known research arm, wants to predict the future using the futures markets, and in doing so guard against terrorist attacks. The project, called FutureMAP,...

XBRL to Boost Automation of Financial Reporting.(Extensible business reporting language )
March 17, 2003... Financial institutions have successfully used the Internet to increase productivity and cut costs, but have not yet been able to provide similar advances in the automation of financial reporting, and this shortcoming thwarts any hope for...

Equilend Targets Sec Loan Recalls.(Creates electronic loan recall management system, buying intellectual property rights to software developed by TechSpan)
March 17, 2003... E-securities lending and borrowing platform Equilend has become the second company to throw its hat in the ring to create an electronic loan recall management system, acquiring the intellectual property rights to software developed by TechSpan....

FTI Taps Nadler for Global Post.(FT Interactive Data)(Brief Article)
March 17, 2003... FT Interactive Data has named David Nadler to the newly created position of vice president of global development. The company is realigning its IT functions into two divisions-production/computer systems, which involves daily systems...

Reuters to Roll Out Linux-Based Data Platform.(Reuters Group Plc)
March 17, 2003... Reuters Group Plc, which is developing a Linux-based version of its Reuters Market Data System (RMDS) market data distribution platform, is gearing up to launch the core infrastructure of RMDS on Linux within a couple of weeks, according to a...

ITG: Further Trading Drops.(Investment Technology Group Inc.)(Brief Article)
March 17, 2003... Investment Technology Group executives said last week that institutional trading volumes worsened over the course of last year, softening dramatically in the last two months of the year. January volumes to date are about 15 percent lower...

Johannesburg Merges Equity, Debt Depositories.
March 17, 2003... Johannesburg has become the latest market affected by the wave of consolidation of post-trade services, with the merger of equities depository Strate and fixed-income depository Central Depository (CD), effective last week. The deal,...

Bloomberg Objects to NYSE Liquidity Quote E-Mail.
March 17, 2003... Bloomberg and the New York Stock Exchange continue to do battle regarding distribution restrictions on the exchange's proposed Liquidity Quote offering, as Bloomberg sent a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission last week protesting...

Dundee Rolls Out Syntegra.(Dundee Securities uses Syntegra software)
March 17, 2003... Dundee Securities, a Toronto-based brokerage investment dealer, has rolled out Syntegra turrets to 30 sales and trading staff, replacing turrets from Vband, according to Paul Stapleton, VP of information systems and CTO at Dundee. Dundee...

CBOT's Neubauer: Payment for Order Flow Hurts Market.
March 17, 2003... At the Chicago Board of Trade's annual meeting last month, Chairman Nickolas Neubauer discussed the CBOT's plan to become a for-profit corporation and its adoption of Euronext.liffe's Liffe Connect as its new electronic platform, following the...

Eagle Links to Charles River.(Eagle Investment Systems interfaces its data hub and portfolio management software product with Charles River Development Corp.'s portfolio management, compliance and order management suite)
March 17, 2003... Eagle Investment Systems has linked with its first order management system (OMS) vendor, interfacing its data hub and portfolio management software product, Eagle Pace, with Charles River Development Corp.'s portfolio management, compliance and...

Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein Extends Agreement With ADP.(ADP Brokerage Services)(Brief Article)
March 17, 2003... ADP Brokerage Services will continue to provide back-office processing services for Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein's New York office. ADP Brokerage Services is a division of ADP Processing. As part of the deal-an extension of an existing...

DataContent Nabs First Mutual Fund Customer.(Heale Financial)(Brief Article)
March 17, 2003... London data vendor consultancy DataContent has won Heale Financial, a mutual fund shareholder data firm, as its first investment fund client. Under the terms of the deal, DataContent will provide marketing, product development advice and...

Platform Symphony 1.5 Unveiled for Grid Computing.(Brief Article)
March 17, 2003... Toronto-based grid solutions provider Platform Computing unveiled an application infrastructure solution last week designed to accelerate online and real-time distributed processing. Called Platform Symphony 1.5, the solution allocates...

Yamner & Co. Chooses SunGard's FIX Engine.(Brief Article)
March 17, 2003... Sell-side agency broker Yamner & Co. has picked SunGard's FIX engine to deliver both settlement and execution information, and has recommended it to some of its clients for use with Yamner's order management system on a soft-dollar basis. ...

TradeWeb Taps Mahoney For Market Analytics Unit.(Jack Mahoney)
March 17, 2003... TradeWeb announced last week the hiring of Jack Mahoney as director of research and marketing to boost the firm's analytic-based services, as well as to manage the firm's public relations. Mahoney joins TradeWeb from the fixed-income,...

J.P. Morgan Wins DrKW as FundsHub Customers.(Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein)
March 17, 2003... J.P. Morgan Chase's FundsHub fund supermarket technology venture has nabbed Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (DrKW) as its fourth client, allowing DrKW's Bestconnect retail electronic dealing platform for equities to also offer trading in unit...

Computershare Integrates EFA's Horizon, Equator.
March 17, 2003... Australian technology provider Computershare will be incorporating the former EFA Software's Horizon trading and Equator settlement systems into its Market Technology Group but postponing further development of the Equator system, Computershare...

SunGard Joins the Institutional Fray.(SunGard Data Systems Inc)
March 17, 2003... SunGard Market Data Services, a unit of SunGard Data Systems, is the latest vendor to target the institutional market with an equities-oriented market data workstation, called SunGard Institutional Pro. SunGard's move follows Thomson...

RBC Taps Thomson Financial.(RBC Investments)(Brief Article)
March 17, 2003... Toronto-based RBC Investments has chosen Thomson Financial to provide a datafeed to support 3,300 brokers and investment reps, and renegotiated a deal for Thomson's datafeed and BetaLink workstation at RBC Dain Rauscher in the United States, to...

Fast Start for CFTC's Newsome, SEC's Donaldson.
March 17, 2003... Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman James Newsome wasted no time in addressing with newly appointed Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William Donaldson a number of outstanding issues regarding single-stock futures trading....