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

A-Team Insight White Paper

Informatica, HP and Mellanox Benchmark Report

This white paper was written by Informatica, HP, and Mellanox Technologies. The securities trading market is experiencing rapid growth in volume and complexity with a greater reliance on trading software, which is supported by sophisticated algorithms. As this market grows, so do the trading volumes, bringing existing IT infrastructure systems to their limits. Trading technology...

The Waiting Game: Standards in Corporate Actions Processing

There has been some real action of late in the standards space for corporate actions. In the US, the SEC issued a requirement for corporations to report in XBRL, and the XBRL US organisation has announced a project with the DTCC and Swift to tie the standard into ISO 20022, all of which could optimistically...

Expanding Global Identifiers in Complex Assets and Other Areas

In the post-credit crisis financial services industry, risk management, compliance and transparency have emerged as focus points for review with provision of accurate and timely data recognised as a critical element of success. Fundamental to data provision is the accurate identification of both financial instruments and counterparties – without which you cannot truly measure your...

Data Management for New Trading Opportunities

As high-frequency and quantitative trading techniques mature, trading firms are finding it harder to make money. Market practitioners are recognizing that speed of market access alone is no longer sufficient to stay ahead of the pack, as low-latency connectivity enters the mainstream. The emphasis is returning to the quality of the trading model. In order...

The Never-ending Story? Progress in the Automation of Corporate Actions

Only a few years ago – but crucially, prior to the financial crisis – surveys which reviewed progress towards corporate actions automation highlighted the key drivers for automation as reducing costs and inefficiencies. Whilst important, these were essentially technical objectives and correspondingly the debate, and its participants, inclined heavily towards the operational parts of the...

Trading Beyond the Horizon: Fragmentation Drives Multi-Market Execution

In 2010, financial markets participants will continue to expand their trading activities as liquidity increasingly becomes fragmented, seeking alpha in new markets, best execution in dark pools, arbitrage opportunities across the order book and by implementing high frequency and complex, multi-leg, cross asset class strategies. The successful operations – whether they be the proprietary desks...

Harnessing Data for Better Valuations

A-Team Group, a publishing and research company specialising in financial information technology, was commissioned by enterprise data management specialist GoldenSource to conduct research into the challenges of managing pricing and valuations data. Throughout the course of October 2009, A-Team Group researchers interviewed senior-level specialists closely aligned to market data or valuations. Several spanned multiple responsibilities...

Cinnober: Lowering Door-to-Door Latency to 25 Microseconds within 18 months

This white paper was written by Cinnober. Today speed is crucial to any trading venue that wants to stay competitive. At the same time, with high-frequency trading gaining an increasing share of overall volumes, the ability to manage rising transaction volumes is also a necessity. In 2007, Cinnober published a white paper which established some...

Market and Reference Data Converge: A United Front for Data Management

A new industry briefing paper prepared by A-Team Group for GoldenSource looks at the inevitable convergence of market and reference data. There has been, to date, a real disconnect between the management of market data in all its forms and reference data used in post-trade support functions. But this is changing as banks scramble to...

Issue 7: Low Latency – Are You Performing?

Low latency technologies continue to be deployed by the financial markets – driven by the need to adopt them simply to stay in the trading game, and hopefully win at it. But low latency covers a wide range of components – from networks, to server hardware, to operating systems and middleware, to middleware, and to...