Fixed-Income Tech, CAT Concerns & Waters November 2017 Features: A Week in Review

CAT Concerns Coalesce

The story of Finra’s Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) took a new turn recently, as the regulator’s project to capture more trade data across the US markets suffered industry calls for postponement, or at least a rethink, with issues regarding cybersecurity coming to the fore. Reporting from the Sifma’s annual meeting in Washington, Emilia David found that views toward the CAT plan have become somewhat pessimistic.

Never ones to miss a good opportunity when they spot one, the folks at LSEG have cannily released a new tool to assist broker-dealers with the regulatory project that will “capture massive amounts” of US trade data. BST editor James Rundle has offered up some concise analysis of the CAT conundrum.

ICE Strengthens Fixed-Income Hand

Earlier this year, I wrote a feature about how the fixed-income technology space was undergoing drastic change, with acquisition activity spiking in the wake of Bloomberg’s purchase of Barclays’ risk and portfolio analytics solution, Point.

The effect is still going strong, it seems, with news that ICE had agreed a deal to acquire Virtu Financial’s fixed-income trading venue BondPoint in a $400 million deal, building on its capture of Interactive Data back in 2015.

However, as US editor Anthony Malakian reports from this year’s Risk USA conference, the spread of fixed-income technology isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

Waters November Features

It’s the start of a new month, which means the latest batch of Waters features are now online for your reading pleasure. James and Anthony have stewed over this year’s Sibos event and have come up with the key themes to take note of, with robotics, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and (gasp!) blockchain top of the list. Meanwhile, Wei-Shen Wong took a deep dive into the world of cryptocurrencies in Asia, as traction begins to build despite Chinese hold-outs.

Just in case you were feeling slightly optimistic about anything – anything at all – here I come with a hefty dollop of Brexit-related gloom in my feature. Sure, there are a couple of very slim silver linings there, but the reality of the situation is that this is a headache that the entire industry could really do without.