Validus Risk Management Launches ISDA Ops to Automate Complex ISDA and CSA Threshold Monitoring

Validus Risk Management has introduced ISDA Ops, a new solution designed to automate the calculation and monitoring of ISDA Additional Termination Events (ATEs) and Credit Support Annexes (CSA) Thresholds. ISDA Ops aims to offer an intelligent and scalable platform that simplifies managing these complex terms, improving the efficiency of handling counterparty and liquidity risks. With automated tracking, real-time decision-making, and enhanced reporting, the solution allows financial institutions to better manage collateral requirements and reduce potential risks.

Developed with insights from over 2,000 trading lines and more than 40 counterparties, ISDA Ops provides users with the flexibility to customise conditions through its Expression Builder. The platform’s integration with Validus’ existing Horizon tools further enhances its capability. Validus plans to introduce additional features, including generative AI for more efficient data parsing, before the year’s end.

Alain Smith, Head of Client Engagement at Validus Risk Management, said: “Monitoring and managing ISDA ATEs and CSA Thresholds are crucial risk management functions but has historically proven a major challenge due to the scale and complexity of the task. ISDA Ops therefore represents a significant breakthrough for risk management teams – presenting a clear, consolidated view of the data and allowing users to identify breaches and model for future risks. Cutting-edge technology has made processing huge volumes of data possible, looking to the future our aim is to keep ISDA Ops at the forefront – deploying generative AI to deepen the capabilities of our game-changing solution.”

Instantia Selects ION FX for End-to-End FX Trading & Risk Management

ION, the trading and workflow automation software provider, has announced that Instantia, an Australia-based digital FX and risk management company, has selected ION’s Foreign Exchange (FX) solution. By using ION, Instantia to streamline its FX operations, including trade execution, risk management, and settlement processes for FX cash and derivative products.

Instantia will use ION’s APIs to build customised user interfaces for clients and dealers, enhancing the overall user experience. This collaboration highlights Instantia’s commitment to leveraging cutting-edge technology for optimising currency exchange and cross-border payment solutions.

Richard Poulton, CEO at Instantia, commented: “This partnership is crucial as it will help us revolutionize FX by consolidating currency hedging positions into a user-friendly interface and expand into other APAC markets.”

Alex Pirmohamed, Chief Product Officer at ION Markets (FX), said: “The ION FX end-to-end solution uniquely suits institutions providing FX services for cross-border payments, and FX risk management. Our platform’s robust functionality facilitated Instantia’s quick time to market, and we remain dedicated to supporting their ambitious objectives.”

Connamara/Acuity Study Finds Emerging Market Derivatives Exchanges Face Technology Hurdles in International Growth

A study by Acuiti, in collaboration with Connamara Technologies, highlights the challenges emerging and frontier market derivatives exchanges face due to outdated technology. The report, “Building Competitive Technology for the Exchanges of the Future,” is based on surveys and interviews with 58 senior executives globally. It reveals that 87% of exchanges in emerging markets view technology investment as crucial for growth, particularly to attract international members. However, less than half have upgraded their matching engines in the past six years, leaving them behind tier 2 and 3 exchanges.

Outsourcing technology, particularly for surveillance systems, is common among these exchanges, with firms reporting better cost predictability and timelines when working with specialist vendors. Key concerns include exchange outages and the need for customisable software, with 67% of respondents planning significant technology investments in the next year.

Jim Downs, Co-Founder & CEO of Connamara Technologies, comments: “Acuiti’s rigorous study validates the clear demand for exchange platforms that offer the cost-effective benefits of a pre-packaged solution while also providing the tailored features and flexibility of a custombuilt platform.”

LIST Upgrades FastTrade Solution to Enhance Access to Cboe Europe’s Equity Trading Mechanisms

LIST, an ION company, has enhanced its FastTrade trading solution to provide access to additional equity trading mechanisms from Cboe Europe. The upgrade allows LIST’s customers to connect to Cboe’s Dark and Periodic Auction Books, which are the largest in their categories, alongside existing access to the Lit Order Books. The enhanced sweep functionality enables customers to engage with multiple Cboe order books through a single order, offering potential advantages in size and price improvements.

Cboe Europe, the leading pan-European stock exchange by market share and value-traded, offers a wide range of trading services, including a retail-focused tariff across its Lit, Dark, and Periodic Auction Books. This tariff allows for free execution of retail orders. Additionally, Cboe plans to introduce a retail liquidity provider solution in early 2025, pending regulatory approval.Alex Dalley, Head of Cboe Netherlands, Cboe Europe, comments: “We are excited that ION’s LIST solution has expanded access to our full range of equity trading execution mechanisms. It will help strengthen Cboe’s presence in the Italian market, particularly among its retail community, and enable LIST’s customers to benefit from better execution outcomes.”

“The enhancement of our trading platform again demonstrates our commitment to innovation,” adds Alvise Insalaco, CEO of LIST. “We are dedicated to delivering cutting-edge solutions that ensure the best execution for client orders across both lit and dark venues.”

T. Rowe Price Goes Live with Propellant Digital’s Transparency Data via FlexTrade’s FlexFI EMS

FlexTrade Systems, the global provider of execution and order management systems, has announced that T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. is now live with Propellant Digital’s fixed-income transparency data offering, integrated through FlexTrade’s FlexFI execution management system. Propellant Digital’s platform delivers real-time insights and analytics on bond market activity, helping financial institutions navigate the electronification of bond trading.

With this integration, T. Rowe Price’s fixed-income trading teams can access comprehensive data, including real-time market activity, historical trade prices, and aggregated trade volumes, all within the FlexFI Order Blotter. This enhanced transparency is poised to benefit from upcoming EU and UK transparency regulations in 2025, enabling traders to streamline workflows, optimise strategies, and make informed decisions directly within their trading platform.

Matt Murphy, Fixed Income Electronic Trading and Market Structure Specialist at T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., comments: “One of the drivers for using FlexTrade’s FlexFI as our fixed-income EMS is ensuring that our bond trading teams can bring in new sources of pre-trade data into the order blotter to provide the aggregated view they need to navigate a constantly changing market landscape. Our deployment of Propellant’s new analytics offering illustrates this, and we look forward to working with them as their offering further evolves.”

Digital Asset Completes Tokenization Initiative for Gilts, Eurobonds, and Gold with Industry Leaders

Digital Asset, the blockchain solutions provider, has successfully completed a collaborative initiative to tokenise gilts, Eurobonds, and gold. This project, conducted in partnership with Euroclear, The World Gold Council, Clifford Chance, and various financial institutions, aimed to demonstrate how blockchain technology can enhance collateral mobility, liquidity, and transactional efficiency.

The pilot, conducted over June and July 2023, involved 27 participants and 14 Canton nodes, completing 500 transactions across 11 distributed applications. The initiative showcased the potential of tokenising real-world assets (RWAs) to facilitate atomic, real-time transactions using previously immobile assets as collateral. With global gold trading averaging $162 billion daily and significant outstanding issuances of Gilts and Eurobonds, the initiative highlights blockchain’s potential to transform asset trading and liquidity management in financial markets.

Olivier Grimonpont, Head of Product Management, Market Liquidity, Euroclear, comments: “We recognise the immense value in industry experimentation to showcase the advantages of DLT for the market. As we strive to deliver even better and faster collateral mobilisation for our clients, digital technologies like DLT will be key enablers for us to achieve this.”

Kelly Mathieson, Chief Business Development Officer at Digital Asset, adds: “Our work with the pilot participants has demonstrated that tokenised assets can be used with immediate effect to meet intraday margin calls outside of normal settlement cycles, processing times, and time zones. It also demonstrated how the ledger can serve as the legal record and has validated the secured party’s control over the digital twin and real-world assets received as margin or collateral in the event of a counterparty default.”

Bridgewise Launches BRIDGET Conversational AI Tool for Investment Insights

Capital markets intelligence and analysis company Bridgewise has unveiled BRIDGET, a Conversational AI investment tool tailored for institutional investors, brokers, and trading platforms. BRIDGET leverages large language models (LLMs) to transform static investment intelligence reports into dynamic, multilingual dialogues, offering regulatory-compliant investment recommendations across more than 25 languages and 15 markets, covering over 50,000 financial instruments globally.

Unlike general AI models, BRIDGET is designed to provide actionable buy/sell advice, specifically addressing gaps in finance-focused expertise and eliminating AI “hallucinations” that lead to inaccurate suggestions. Its specialized Micro Language Model (MLM) ensures precision in investment-related topics. As generative AI is projected to add between $200-$340 billion in value annually to the banking sector, BRIDGET aims to support the financial industry’s demand for innovative, compliant, and client-responsive solutions.

Gaby Diamant, Co-Founder and CEO of Bridgewise, comments: “By integrating advanced AI with regulatory compliance, we are not only enhancing the efficiency and accuracy of investment decisions but also ensuring that these decisions are made within a secure and compliant framework.” He adds: “This tool is a game-changer for financial institutions looking to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving sector, and to empower their analysts and investors to interact with data in a more intuitive and insightful manner, thereby enhancing decision-making processes.”

RETN and IPC Systems Launch High-Capacity 10G Connectivity Between Frankfurt and Hong Kong

RETN, the independent global network services provider, has partnered with IPC Systems to introduce a new 10G connectivity link between Frankfurt and Hong Kong, enhancing network diversity and performance for the financial markets. Implemented within a two-week period, the low-latency terrestrial route utilises RETN’s TRANSKZ super-highway, providing a robust and diverse connection between Europe and Asia.

The strategic link is designed to support high-frequency trading and time-sensitive financial operations by improving access to liquidity venues and reducing latency. This ensures that financial market participants, particularly those based in the key financial hubs of Hong Kong and Frankfurt, can trade more efficiently, reliably, and quickly. The new link offers a strong SLA and protection to support critical business applications in the competitive global financial landscape.

“IPC Systems has an overarching requirement for – and commitment – to building, maintaining and continuously enhancing the resilient, redundant, high performance industry networks that underpin and safeguard our customers’ business-critical applications and trading activities,” comments Paul Zatek, Head of Global Channel Sales of IPC Systems. “Our collaboration with RETN on this new Frankfurt-Hong Kong link reinforces this commitment, and gives our extensive global financial markets community another valuable route between key markets with the reliability and latency performance they expect from IPC’s service delivery and customer experience,” continued Zatek.

“In today’s tumultuous environment, with frequent disruptions such as sub-sea cable cuts and other network challenges, the importance of network diversity and availability of the service cannot be overstated,” adds Tony O’Sullivan, CEO of RETN. “IPC Systems exemplifies forward-thinking innovation by prioritising network diversity and redundancy. Ensuring multiple, diverse routes is critical to maintaining uninterrupted connectivity and operational integrity.”

Meritsoft Launches New Asset Servicing Claims Management Solution to Transform Operations

Meritsoft, a Cognizant company, has launched a new asset servicing claims management solution, aiming to modernise the handling of coupon and dividend claims operations. Built on the company’s next-generation post-trade automation platform, the solution automates claims issuance, matching, and payment processes, reducing aged debtors and risk-weighted assets. The platform addresses the operational challenges faced by asset servicing teams, particularly during post-dividend seasons when backlogs are common.

The API-first tool integrates seamlessly into existing workflows and includes real-time dashboards for managing claims by attributes like entity, market, and age. It also features an inter-company matching tool to optimise costs from internal trading claims. By automating the processing of claims received via PDF or CSV attachments and integrating with tools like Taskize, Meritsoft’s solution enhances efficiency and enables faster, auditable resolution of complex queries. It offers on-premises or cloud deployment for scalability.

“Claims management, often overlooked in the industry’s priority list, stands to benefit immensely from more automation and emerging technologies,’ comments Daniel Carpenter, CEO of Meritsoft. “Our solution empowers asset servicing teams globally to move away from the manually intensive processes involved with claims matching and reconciliation and focus instead on the more complex and value-add tasks. For the broader firm, this will equate to lower costs, healthier margins, and an enhanced client reputation.”

UK Accelerated Settlement Task Force Releases Draft Recommendations for Transition to T+1 Settlement

The T+1 Technical Group (TGT) of the UK Accelerated Settlement Task Force (AST) has published its proposed recommendations for the UK’s transition from a T+2 to a T+1 securities settlement cycle. The draft recommendations, focusing on enhancing efficiency and reducing risk in equity market settlements, are open for consultation until 31 October 2024.

The global shift toward a T+1 settlement cycle aims to bring quicker and more efficient settlements through enhanced automation, expected to become standard practice within five years. Following the UK government’s commitment to move to T+1 by 31 December 2027, this interim report outlines key recommendations for market participants and invites feedback. The final report, expected in December, will incorporate stakeholder feedback and outline detailed timelines and guidance for the transition.

“This interim report is a key milestone in the UK’s journey to T+1 settlement and I’d like to extend my gratitude to all those involved in crafting this report and providing the depth of industry expertise needed to shape these draft recommendations,” says Andrew Douglas, Chair of the T+1 Technical Group. “As an independent, inclusive working group, supported by the public authorities, I’m calling on all market participants to engage in this consultation so that together we can ensure the final recommendations for implementation reflect the full spectrum of industry needs.”