About a-team Marketing Services
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry

A-Team Insight Blogs

Virginie’s Blog – Never a Dull Moment

Subscribe to our newsletter

Summer used to be a quiet month or two for news. Not so this year (or even the last few years perhaps). What with the M&A rumour mill on overdrive, restructuring and musical chairs within the vendor community, endless regulatory toing and froing, and the recent announcement that the UK is potentially opting out of Target2-Securities (T2S), it’s been a busy month.

On that last item, although the Bank of England hasn’t confirmed it, there has been a rumour doing the rounds this week that the UK has vetoed joining the European Central Bank’s (ECB) T2S project. The project, which aims to harmonise settlement across Europe, will impact the securities services industry throughout the region and, more importantly for the back office and data crowd, the corporate actions processing function (see more here).

The T2S team has identified standards that must be adopted in the corporate actions function in order to participate in the new settlement system. The responsibility for the adoption of these new corporate actions standards has therefore been laid at the feet of the central securities depositories (CSDs) who will be compelled to adopt them as they sign up to participate in T2S. However, it is not yet certain what the impact will be for countries that opt out (especially when a country so significant in the cross border traffic stakes opts out – the UK represents around 40% of the flow of euro transactions). Will this put the whole project in jeopardy? What happens to the planned adoption of the new corporate actions standards in that case? Not much is certain as yet.

The same can be said of the unsteady sands of regulatory change, with various parts of Dodd Frank evolving and key aspects of European regulation up for debate. How can definitive operations and technology focused projects be planned with any certainty when the goalposts are constantly moving? That’s certainly a common complaint within the data vendor community about the response of the C level to such regulatory uncertainty. Vital data infrastructure projects can easily languor in the mire in such circumstances.

In other news on the uncertainty front, the vendors currently waiting to learn their fate – Thomson Reuters’ Kondor business line, Misys, SmartStream et al – are having a tense summer. Will the FIS bid for Misys go through? Who is bidding for SmartStream and when will the winner be announced? What on earth is going on at Thomson Reuters?

I’m fairly certain that given these uncertainties, the summer will continue to be a hectic one on the news front.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Related content

WEBINAR

Upcoming Webinar: Unlocking Transparency in Private Markets: Data-Driven Strategies in Asset Management

15 October 2025 10:00am ET | 3:00pm London | 4:00pm CET Duration: 50 Minutes As asset managers continue to increase their allocations in private assets, the demand for greater transparency, risk oversight, and operational efficiency is growing rapidly. Managing private markets data presents its own set of unique challenges due to a lack of transparency,...

BLOG

FCA Derivatives Trading Obligation: Why GRC Teams Should Watch Article 28a Closely

The FCA’s latest announcement on the UK derivatives trading obligation (DTO) landed quietly on July 17, but its impact is more than a short web statement. By invoking its brand-new power of direction under Article 28a of onshored MiFIR, the regulator has replaced the post Brexit Temporary Transitional Power (TTP) transitional regime with a standing...

EVENT

TradingTech Briefing New York

Our TradingTech Briefing in New York is aimed at senior-level decision makers in trading technology, electronic execution, trading architecture and offers a day packed with insight from practitioners and from innovative suppliers happy to share their experiences in dealing with the enterprise challenges facing our marketplace.

GUIDE

Regulatory Data Handbook 2025 – Thirteenth Edition

Welcome to the thirteenth edition of A-Team Group’s Regulatory Data Handbook, a unique and practical guide to capital markets regulation, regulatory change, and the data and data management requirements of compliance across Europe, the UK, US and Asia-Pacific. This year’s edition lands at a moment of accelerating regulatory divergence and intensifying data focused supervision. Inside,...