Brexit

COMMODITIES AND
ENERGY TRADING
Openlink
Openlink, the global leader in trading and risk
management solutions has been named the best
Overall CTRM/ETRM market leader in a vendor
perception audit which was carried out by analyst
firm ComTech Advisory. The majority of the 230
responses were from financial and physical energy
trading firms. This follows earlier successes this year
as Openlink was named Commodities Trading Systems
Leader by Risk Magazine, Top Energy Trading Risk
Vendor in the 2016 Chartis RiskTech100® Rankings,
and Best Overall ETRM Platform in the Energy Risk
Rankings for the eleventh consecutive year.
SOFTWARE VENDORS
VELOCIMETRICS, the provider of real-time monitoring
and business flow analytics has just launched
mdPlay, which allows trading firms to capture every
single market data stream and then replay it with
+/-20 nanosecond precision, allowing firms the
ability create a wide range of real-world conditions
to fully test and customise trading algorithms and
strategies.
AFTER A QUIET SPELL in energy and commodities
trading system sales due to lower oil prices and
uncertainty in the market, it appears that things
are now starting to return to normal – regardless of
Brexit. We are seeing the larger vendors in the ETRM/
CTRM space start to hire more aggressively for sales
people, competing heavily for the current top talent
in the market.
HIRING IN THE SOFTWARE SPACE is often a good
indicator of the health or current status of a certain
market. With extra opportunities or increasing
business, you will of course require more specialist
sales people to sell your products.
ETRM WORLD has seen a rise in activity globally,
Aspect Enterprise Solution still seeing a lot of
success with their cloud base solution. However
Amphora and EKA are starting to have a larger impact
on the European market and are looking to challenge
Allegro and Aspect on Market share
US SOFTWARE VENDORS
BROADRIDGE ONCE AGAIN expand their offering, this
time across collateral management and securities
lending with the purchase of 4Sight Financial
Software. 4Sight, who had just started building
their US team in NYC will be integrated into the
Broadridge Securities and Collateral Management
solutions. This acquisition will allow their clients to
optimize financing decisions across different asset
categories, automate the securities financing life
cycle and control risk.
CONSULTANCIES
IN THE AGE OF COMPLIANCE and an increase in
regulations slowly being released there is not only
a greater need for Specialist Compliance experts in
their own fields but there is also a short term need for
projects with the release of different mandates like
the recent introduction of MAD2 & MAR this July.
THIS IS WHERE THE CONSULTANCIES COME IN, they
can help you with the sudden increase in work
load and the ramp up for the months running up
to the new release.
THE PENSIONS REGULATOR has agreed to extend
its partnership with Capita for a further three
years to ensure the continued successful roll-out
of automatic enrolment (AE) to small and micro
employers.
THE CONTRACT EXTENSION is worth an additional
£37 million over three years and will run from
October 2018.
CAPITA has been working with The Pensions Regulator
since 2011, delivering direct communications to
employers who are preparing for AE. The extension
reflects the success of the partnership in helping The
Pensions Regulator to maximise compliance with AE
pension’s regulation.
SO FAR MORE THAN 140,000 EMPLOYERS have been
through AE, resulting in more than six million people
being automatically enrolled. The Pensions Regulator
and Capita have worked in partnership to deliver
a tailored approach to communications that is
helping to deliver compliance rates of more than 90%
amongst small and micro employers.
UNDER THE EXTENDED CONTRACT, Capita will continue to
deliver high-volume employer communications both
to employers yet to implement automatic enrolment
and to employers who have already undergone
the process and will need to re-enrol staff. Capita
will also continue to administer enforcement
communications including compliance notices.
THE PENSIONS REGULATOR continues to be responsible
for the automatic enrolment strategy, policy, the
overall approach to communications, compliance
and enforcement including prevention and
detection activities.
A LEADING CONSULTANCY recently told me they are
currently working on the following projects:
OPERATING MODEL DESIGN, organisational change
and outsourcing within an Investment Management
Company. Also they are selecting an Investment
Accounting platform for a large UK asset manager
and the development of a Target Operating Model.
Finally, the development and delivery of outsourced
operating models for two large UK asset managers.
Having spoken to this particular client in depth after
the Brexit Vote all projects are going ahead and a
positive outlook is expected from their side.
BROKERAGES, EXCHANGES,
TRADING HOUSES, MTFS,
ALTERNATIVE TRADING VENUES
ONE OF THE WORLD’S LARGEST EXCHANGE ORGANISATIONS
WORLDWIDE, Deutsche Börse has set up a division
committed to investing in start-up technology
companies – as the world's largest financial
establishments seek more direct ways putting money
to work in the fintech sector.
LMAX EXCHANGE has claimed it has found clear
evidence that the market should be rules-based and
move to execution-only venues.
THE EXCHANGE is calling on UK regulators to implement
new industry standards, and commit to a clear
timeline for "ridding the market of practices open
to abuse" and "end two years of regulatory inertia",
citing a new survey conducted by the trading venue,
called - The road to FX reformation: Restoring trust.
The market turmoil that
followed Britain's shock
decision to leave the
European Union was a
boon for broker ICAP -
but that wasn't enough
to offset the wider
difficulties facing its
electronic trading division.
THOMSON REUTERS and CME Group today are going
to implement connectivity between their instant
messaging networks, Thomson Reuters Eikon
Messenger and CME Pivot Instant Messaging. It
will support open and compliant cross-industry
communication for financial and commodities
markets. This is going to be available at the back
end of Q3 2016. It’s going to allow over 3000,000
current market participants using the service to
communicate between platforms.
CME are hiring a lot as are a lot of other exchanges
including LSE and Bats-Chi. I have seen them all hire
support people over the last few months showing
they are focusing on improving their service.
GAIN CAPITAL HOLDINGS, INC. (NYSE: GCAP) has
published its monthly metrics for June 2016. Both the
retail and institutional trading volumes were up from
the month of May 2016, as per an official statement.
DELVING INTO THE FIGURES, retail OTC trading volume
reached $231.7 billion, an increase of 3.7% from
May 2016 and a decrease of 43.7% from June 2015.
Average daily retail OTC trading reached a volume of
$10.5 billion, an increase of 3.7% from May 2016 and
a decrease of 43.7% from June 2015. Active retail
OTC accounts were marginally higher from May 2016,
coming in at 139,022, up 0.1% from last month, but
saw a strong drop of 6.5% YoY from June 2015.
THE INSTITUTIONAL SIDE of the business continued to
perform strongly, with a healthy 40.1% MoM increase
in ECN trading volumes, which came in at $212.3
billion for the month of June 2016, netting average
daily volume (ADV) of $9.6 billion, an increase of
17.9% from June 2015. The ECN volume presents
the amount of spot FX and non-deliverable forwards
(NDFs) trading executed through GTX platform.
PROP-TRADING FIRMS have been capitalising on the
volatile markets in the recent weeks, with some
organisations seeking growth in development teams
due to new trade desks being put in place.
MIFID II is in the heart of the brokerage & trading
venues IT project pipeline with back and middle
office systems needing preparation for compliance
with ESMA Regulatory Technical Standards. This is
creating some exciting projects for skilled software
developers to come in and build Greenfield systems
for compliance/reconciliation/trade monitoring
systems.
THE MARKET TURMOIL that followed Britain's shock
decision to leave the European Union was a boon
for broker ICAP - but that wasn't enough to offset
the wider difficulties facing its electronic trading
division. ICAP which will soon be called Nex Group,
said that currency trading volume jumped to $200bn
on 24 June. It came after Britons confounded polls by
GLOBAL LEADERS IN FINANCIAL SERVICES AND COMMODITIES TECHNOLOGY RECRUITMENT
54
55