Feature
Bea Martin: The Glue That Bonds UBS
In the April 2018 cover story of Waters, UBS Investment Bank's COO, Beatriz Martín Jiménez, talks with Victor Anderson about blockchain, AI and some of the hurdles she has faced in her career.
Prop Shops Lock On to Crypto Markets
As the sell side hesitates, advanced principal trading shops are getting in on the crypto craze in a big way.
Esma Wades In: Regulator Targets Rating Agency Fees
Data consumers have long-bemoaned the fees charged by rating agencies, citing prices and a lack of transparency around how fees are set as key concerns. With no response from the agencies to user groups, Esma is now weighing in on the subject. Pauline…
Esma Probes APAs Amid Mifid Trade Data Issues
Approved Publication Arrangements—a critical component in the new Mifid II European markets regulation—may be falling short of their requirements under the new transparency rules, and have drawn Esma’s attention. By Samuel Wilkes, with additional…
Wrestling Over Competing Mifid II, GDPR Data Demands
The data gathering, retention and reporting requirements of Mifid II seem at odds with the enhanced personal data protection rules of the GDPR. But with careful consideration, financial institutions can balance their regulatory obligations under the two…
Light at the End of the Tunnel, But Will Mifid Dark Pool Rules Add Up?
Esma has released the first figures to support Mifid II’s caps on the percentage of equities trading that can be transacted on dark pools. However, critics warn that although the delay has given Esma more time to validate data and clean up queries, the…
Asia’s New Tigers: Exchanges Overhaul Aging Systems
Waters looks at major projects being rolled out in 2018 at exchanges in Japan, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore.
The Big Crunch: Traditional Tech’s Great Contraction
Waters examines how this recent wave of consolidation is different than previous periods of contraction.
Hurricane Mike: Urciuoli Storms JPMorgan Asset & Wealth Management
JPMorgan Asset and Wealth Management's CIO brings the pace of the trading floor to asset management.
The Curious Case of the Trader–Vendor
Tradeworx, now Thesys Group, is the latest in a series of firms that has decided to pull back from trading activities and focus on fintech. And it’s unlikely to be the last.
Bitcoin Futures Face Turbulent Times in the Windy City
Bitcoin conquered the world in 2017, but the performance of the futures looks like it will have to wait longer for take-off.
Hard Labor: Dealing With Alternative Data
Everyone’s excited about the potential untapped alpha promised by “alternative data,” yet those who work with it are far from excited about the prospect of evaluating unwieldy and unstructured datasets. Max Bowie looks at the practical challenges of…
Lock, Stock & Barrel: Securities Lending Under the Gun
Securities finance has a new battlefront: two lawsuits alleging anticompetitive behavior in stock lending. At the center of the allegations lies the difficulty of finding actionable price and inventory data for borrowers and lenders alike. Will this…
London Calling: TP Icap’s Sinclair Eyes Client-Driven Data
Six years after the collapsed merger between TMX and LSE thwarted his plans to relocate from Canada to London, Eric Sinclair is bringing his start-up spirit and focus on client experience to TP Icap, where he told Jamie Hyman and Joanne Faulkner about…
Fee Fight: Ye Olde Market Data Battleground
Market data fees charged by exchanges continue to be a bone of contention for banks, electronic trading firms and asset managers. And although recent events playing out in the US are adding fuel to the fee fire, frustration levels are rising in Europe…
An Officer and a Regulation: Finding A GDPR Superstar
When the General Data Protection Regulation comes into force on May 25, most financial companies will require a data protection officer. With an entire industry racing to meet GDPR’s compliance deadline, will there be enough candidates to go around?…
Europe’s Mifid Monster Lurches to Life
January 3 went smoothly for many, but the launch of Europe's far-reaching reform package wasn't without problems.
CAT Got Your Tongue?: An Inside Look at the Consolidated Audit Trail's Sluggish Rollout
When the Consolidated Audit Trail failed to go live in November last year, questions came as to why—but answers were not easy to come by.
Scott Blandford's Random Collisions
TIAA's chief digital officer sits down with Waters to discuss how the retirement giant is using big data to improve the customer experience and what the institutional side of finance can learn from retail.
Putting the Fintech House in Order
Without adequate standards in place that are globally coordinated, the rampant growth of fintech may introduce more problems than it solves.
Cryptocurrencies Come of Age, But Is Crypto Data Ready?
Once used as payment for shady deals, digital currencies have long been the domain of speculators and retail investors. But the wild price increases of the past year have led institutional investors to sniff excitedly at the loins of the cryptocurrency…
Industry Fears Neutered CAT in 2018
The SEC’s Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) of US equities trade data hit a fresh snag in late 2017, missing a major deadline for reporting, blaming insufficient cyber defenses. As it marches into another crucial year, Tim Bourgaize Murray reports on the…
Getting ‘Carded’: Current and Future Uses for FPGAs in Finance
With their origins in industries such as defense, aerospace, and medicine, FPGAs have been used by certain aspects of financial markets for about a decade to gain speed. Wei-Shen Wong examines the current uses for this specialized hardware in finance,…
Esma’s LEI Xmas Extension: Last-Minute Gift or Lump of Coal?
Jamie Hyman talks with an LEI issuer, advocate and end-user about how Esma’s LEI grace period will impact operations during the first half of 2018.