The Top 10 Features of 2015: A Year in Headlines, Part One

Regulation was the key theme of 2015, with the impending arrival of European legislation MiFID II hogging most of the attention ─ a trend that is set to continue for the foreseeable future now that the implementation has been postponed by a further year.

Meanwhile, blockchain has undoubtedly been the breakout technology trend of the last twelve months, going from a widely misunderstood associate of the mistrusted bitcoin to the darling of the industry technology ball, as new initiatives garner more and more support from high-profile players.

Of course there have been many other pressing issues for the technology-minded capital market participant to get their teeth into, from the staggering amounts of money thrown around in numerous merger and acquisition deals to the murky (depending on who you talk to) state of dark pool trading. Below you'll find the first part of the best 10 features of the year.

10: Market Surveillance: Rising to the Challenge

The significance of market surveillance technologies have become ever increasing for both the buy and sell side, as regulators drive for greater transparency and the reduction of market fraud, while firms invest in employee monitoring systems. David Dawkins examines the surveillance solutions currently on the market, and talks to organizations from both sides of the industry that are aiming to rise to the challenge.

9: T2S: The Final Countdown

Nine years is a long time to wait for a project to launch and 2015 saw the first wave of migrations on to the new pan-European securities settlement platform, Target2-Securities (T2S), finally take place. The brainchild of the European Central Bank is meant to usher in a harmonized landscape for the settlement of domestic and cross-border securities transactions across Europe, but there is still a long way to go before the fourth and final migration wave in February 2017.

8: Tip of the Iceberg: The Challenges of BCBS 239

There have been numerous regulatory concerns through 2015, with many banks still struggling with preparedness. With the January 2016 introduction of BCBS 239 lurking on the horizon, Dan DeFrancesco finds that while support for the guidelines regarding risk data aggregation and risk reporting is strong, banks are struggling to implement the systems required to be compliant and that the penalties for not being ready are still unclear.

7: Digitization's Second Wave Finds Buy Side Seeking Wisdom from Within

The traditional buy-side approach of prioritizing digitization towards the front-end is undergoing a subtle shift, with a growing trend for inward-facing projects. Tim Bourgaize Murray finds that new digitization projects for internal communications, relationship management and cost allocations are becoming more popular for large asset management firms that have undergone organizational transformation.

6: Fixed-Income ETFs: Pricing, Tech Evolve in This Rapidly Growing Space

Thanks to guidelines provided by the SEC in 2007 and the need to find liquidity in the fixed-income market after the global financial crisis of 2008, the fixed-income ETF market has exploded from $20.5 billion in 2006 to over $300 billion today. Waters US editor Anthony Malakian examines how the role of technology has aided the explosion of fixed-income ETFs into what some believe could become a $2 trillion market during the next decade.

You can find Part 2, here.