Capital Markets Technology

Front Office Trading Trends and Technologies...

Charles Platt President, EMEA at SAP Fioneer

Why Star Wars’ robots are deliberately annoying

The Star Wars universe is filled with annoying robots; they are terrible workers, nervous, inattentive and sloppy. There is a good reason behind that. For George Lucas, it seems these flawed robots were created as a plot device to justify armies of human clones. Ironically, he had to give his robots “human” qualities to justify increasing headcoun...

18 July 2017

Keith Bear Vice President, Financial Markets at IBM

The 7 bank commitment to blockchain has many implications not just for trade finance but for the evo

Last week’s announcement by the seven bank Digital Trade Chain Consortium is another strong indication that the “peak hype” discussions around blockchain are somewhat misplaced. This blockchain network, designed to deliver a trade finance solution across Europe to support small and medium businesses, stands out from the steady flow of other blockc...

05 July 2017

Charles Platt President, EMEA at SAP Fioneer

Putting Artificial Intelligence to Profitable Use

It’s crunch time for the Big Data crunchers. Having lavished millions of dollars on data scientists to search for patterns in a deluge of digital information, banks and financial institutions need to start doing something to make that newfound intel pay. The question is, what? Big Data - the bits and bytes of everyday life harvested from our increa...

25 April 2017

Ivy Schmerken Editorial Director at FlexTrade Systems

Next Steps in Bond Trading: All-to-All Matching Catching on?

Corporate bond trading platforms are in the news again. Platforms that have launched innovative all-to-all trading protocols are attracting buy-side firms to their venues. Despite skepticism a few years ago that all-to-all platforms wouldn’t attract liquidity, platforms like MarketAxess with Open Trading and Liquidnet’s have gained traction on the...

04 April 2017 /regulation

David Donovan Executive Vice President at Publicis.Sapient

Data Analytics as a Service in Asset Management: Moving from Assumption to Fact-based Modelling

The year is shaping up to be one where my dialog with leadership within large financial institutions shifts from “I want to do digital” to “Show me how digital helps me become more competitive.” Digital has become table stakes and the asset management industry is now focused on how components within digital, such as data analytics, cloud or mobile,...

14 February 2017 /wholesale

Retired Member 

Pre-Trade Risk for Futures in the Future

Liquidation Only. Did your heart skip a beat? In futures and options trading when we hear “Liquidation Only” it means that something went wrong. Someone is losing money. The broker wants all new investments to stop. In the world of electronic trading with direct access through software there is no longer someone thinking about the client and the br...

21 January 2017 /regulation

Retired Member 

Understanding Futures Transaction Flow - Basic Introduction

I have used the following flow diagram (included at the end of this post) to explain to many people how someone trading a listed future contract on a screen actually has money moved into our out of the clearing account. This is a basic view of a normal trade. Each Futures Commission Merchant (FCM), Exchange, and Clearinghouse processes transaction...

13 January 2017

Retired Member 

A fool with a tool is still a fool

Machine Learning is getting a lot of buzz. I hear questions from our clients as we have successfully implemented it in our trading surveillance tool. We use machine learning to score the likelihood that trading activity is similar to known cases of spoofing, or layering. Did you catch that? We use Machine Learning for a specific business purpose. ...

25 May 2016 /startups

Retired Member 

A Transforming World for Broker Dealers

US Regulators are seeking a “Culture of Compliance” among trading firms. Global regulators are increasing their scrutiny of market manipulation. New regulations are requiring broker dealers to know more about technology use among their clients than ever before. Pre-Trade risk controls are actively being monitored. Capital requirements are growing...

12 April 2016

Retired Member 

Of Broker Dealers, Machine Learning, Capital Utilization, and Profitability

Over the past couple of years I have had the good fortune to discuss the need for improved understand of profitability and capital utilization in broker dealers. Frustrations abound. Discussions on the need to find the right clients to meet the balance sheet utilization mix meander with no clear end in sight. Investment managers are moving their b...

18 March 2016