Opinion: 20 Points on the LEI Initiative
By Allan D. Grody, President, Financial InterGroup Holdings 1. There was a rush to pass legislation in the US after the onset of the financial crisis 2. The legislation was written piecemeal as you would expect since the financial industry itself is “piecemeal”, that translates into silos of business and piecemeal/silos of understanding 3. The...
SwiftRef Utility to Include LEI, Reference Data
Interbank messaging organisation Swift is suggesting that its SwiftRef payments reference data utility, which went live in January, will also host legal entity identifier (LEI) reference data when it becomes available later this year, and perhaps securities reference data as well. SwiftRef was conceived to fill a perceived market gap in accurate and up-to-date payments...
US Data Transparency Coalition Focuses on Federal Data in Capital Markets
The US Data Transparency Coalition (DTC) introduced last week to advocate for the standardisation of federal data published online, warns that without significant changes in electronic data creation and management capital markets remain open to a crisis on the scale of the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers. If that is a worst case scenario of...
Efama Launches Complaint About S&P ISIN Pricing in Switzerland
The European Fund and Asset Management Association’s (Efama) complaint against Standard & Poor’s practice of making end users of its International Securities Identification Numbers (ISINs) in Switzerland pay a licence charge and fees for the numbers is in the hands of the Swiss competition authority Wettbewerbskommission (Weko). A small scale dispute, perhaps, but one that...
Stop Press: Markit Buys Data Explorers
Markit has acquired securities lending data specialist Data Explorers, from owners Bowmark Capital, a mid-market private equity firm. Terms weren’t disclosed. By combining Data Explorers’ data set with its own products and services, Markit plans to develop new offerings allowing clients to optimise their use of collateral. Markit will also develop products for equity market...
State Street Offers Entity Exposure Monitoring Across Asset Classes
State Street’s Entity Exposure Monitor Service went live this week, giving asset owners and managers a view of how much financial exposure they have to each legal entity they do business with or have in their portfolios. As well as being available immediately, the service plays into forthcoming US and European regulation on legal entity...
Bloomberg Open Symbology Gains Traction with Take-Up by Finra
Bloomberg’s addition of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra) to a growing list of organisations recognising and using its open symbology offers financial firms another step along the way to using open rather than proprietary symbologies designed to improve market connectivity and transparency, while reducing users’ costs. Broker-dealers registered with Finra are required by the...
Kempen Capital Manages Collateral and Reduces Risk with Omgeo ProtoColl
Amsterdam-based asset manager Kempen Capital Management has implemented Omgeo’s ProtoColl to automate collateral management for OTC derivatives and reduce counterparty and operational risk. The asset manager first outsourced collateral management before bringing it back in house and creating a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet solution that has now been replaced with ProtoColl. The software went live in...
b-next Launches CMC:Cloud via Thomson Reuters Elektron Platform
b-next, a pioneering provider of multi-venue multi asset class capital markets surveillance and compliance solutions, today announces its CMC:Cloud solution for financial institutions via the Elektron network from Thomson Reuters. The solution which will offer the b-next CMC:Suite as a “software as a service” will provide Investment Banks, Brokers, MTFs, Asset Managers, Hedge Funds and...
Morningstar Launches Morningstar Analyst Rating for Funds, New Global Scale for Qualitative Ratings
Morningstar, a leading provider of independent investment research, today launched the Morningstar Analyst Rating for funds, the company’s new global scale for qualitative fund ratings. The Morningstar Analyst Rating is a designation assigned by Morningstar fund research analysts around the world and derived from the company’s five pillar analytical framework that considers the following key...