James Rundle, WatersTechnology's US editor, and Anthony Malakian, editor at large for WatersTechnology, record a weekly podcast touching on the biggest stories in financial technology.

To hear the full interview, listen in the player above, or you can download it.

This week, Anthony and James look at key themes that arose at several conferences from around the globe over the last two weeks: Brexit and how it will impact Mifid II, disillusionment with blockchain, and data quality challenges. 

2:00 Shocking, there are major data challenges relating to Mifid II, according to the chairman of the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) Robert Ophéle. Get this: there’s a lot of regulatory arbitrage, the data quality being reported “leaves much to be desired” and they may need to enact “a number of legislative fixes.”

10:30 Another shocker, some exchanges are not quite finding value stemming from their blockchain proofs-of-concept. Fortunately, we have Nouriel Roubini to speak some truth to power. 

17:00 And the more things change, the more they stay the same: firms still struggle with data quality and data governance, even as they look to explore new tools, such as machine learning, and new streams of information, such as alternative data.

31:00 From a non-industry perspective, it’s Mental Illness Awareness Week and Anthony relates it back to a new book about Abraham Lincoln. To lighten things up a bit, James recommends some sci-fi books. 

If you are so inclined, you can donate to MIND, the mental health charity, or the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, which awards grants to those making advancements in the understanding of numerous mental disorders.

Contact Info

As is the case with everything we do, we'd love to get some feedback from our listeners. Feel free to reach out to Anthony or James via Twitter or email.

Anthony Malakian, editor at large: @a_malakian; [email protected]

James Rundle, US editor: @JimRundle; [email protected]

Past 10 episodes:

Episode 131: More Bitcoin ETFs & More State Street-Charles River

Episode 132: Thasos Group’s CEO Talks Alternative Data

Episode 133: IBM on Quantum Computing

Episode 134: All About ETFs

Episode 135: The Most Important Technologies of the Future

Episode 136: Blockchain Projects & Some Politics 

Episode 137: Bloomberg on Data Fragmentation

Episode 138: Nasdaq-Cinnober Tie-up & 10 Years After Lehman's Collapse

Episode 139: Broadridge on Emerging Tech in APAC

Episode 140: Web Data Extraction & Refinitiv Update