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Pricing Partners Talks up Jump Diffusion Models at MathFinance Conference

Valuations provider Pricing Partners told delegates to this month’s MathFinance Conference in Germany about its recent work towards achieving smart expansion and fast calibration for jump diffusion models. The vendor promoted its recent work on approximation methods using its smart expansion method to calibrate jump diffusion models to attendees to the quantitative finance event last…

Quantifi Releases New Version of Solution for North American CDS Changes

Following recent upgrades by its competition, analytics and risk management solution vendor Quantifi has released a new version of its solution to support the impending changes to the North American credit default swap (CDS) market. Rohan Douglas, CEO of the vendor, explains that Version 9.1.4 of its solution has been released to support the new…

MFC Global Investment Management Selects Thomson Reuters’ Portia for Recordkeeping

The asset management arm of Canadian-based financial services group Manulife Financial, MFC Global Investment Management, has selected Thomson Reuters’ Portia for its investment recordkeeping requirements. The firm signed the multi-million dollar deal with a view to introducing a single book of record for the public asset component of its investment management business, says said Jacqui…

TowerGroup’s Hegarty Joins DTCC as Managing Director to Focus on Front Office

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has appointed ex-TowerGroup executive Robert Hegarty to the newly created position of managing director of market structure. In his new role, Hegarty will be spearheading the vendor’s efforts to identify new market and growth opportunities focused on the front office and trading communities. Hegarty joins DTCC from TowerGroup,…

CESR to Get New Regulatory Powers Over Credit Ratings Agencies, SEC Plans Roundtable on Subject

Somebody should have told the credit ratings agencies to beware the ides of March. Regulators from both sides of the Atlantic have been scrutinising the ratings community this month: the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is gearing up for its roundtable discussion on the subject on 15 April and there are ongoing discussions within the…

Swift’s Church Joins XBRL US Board of Directors

In keeping with its current work on mapping XBRL to ISO standards for corporate actions, Swift’s Americas CEO and global head of securities, Chris Church, has joined the board of directors for XBRL US. Church says his participation on the board of the non-profit consortium for XML business reporting standards reaffirms Swift’s commitment to the…

Pricing Partners Highlights Issues with Recovery Rate Assumptions for CDSs

Valuations provider Pricing Partner has been talking up its new service aimed at providing greater accuracy around recovery rate assumptions for credit default swaps (CDSs). The vendor claims that the financial crisis has highlighted the inaccurate modelling assumptions that have been used as the basis for valuations for these credit derivatives. Eric Benhamou, CEO of…

CMA Upgrades Solutions for Changes to North American CDSs

CME Group-owned Credit Market Analysis (CMA) has upgraded its solutions set to account for the impending changes to the North American credit default swap (CDS) market. The changes, which are being introduced on 8 April and are being championed by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), affect the quoting conventions for single name CDS…

Smith Rejoins Fiserv’s Investment Services Division

Following a nine year stint at Thomson Financial, Charles Smith has rejoined Fiserv as vice president of client services for its Investment Services division. Smith previously worked at CheckFree Investment Services for seven years (now under the Fiserv banner) as vice president of product development. In his new role, Smith will act as a client…

ReferenceDataFactory Adds Support for SIX Telekurs’ Valordata Feed

ReferenceDataFactory (RDF) has added support for SIX Telekurs’ flagship securities reference data service, Valordata Feed (VDF), with the launch of its RDF Adaptive Client Technology for the data feed. Gerry Marsh, managing director of RDF, explains that the addition of the security master reference data, corporate actions and valuation pricing data feed is part of…