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Cory Levine, Wall Street & Technology

The National Securities Clearing Corp. (NSCC) has offered to work with the SEC to promote transparency in clearing and settlement by revealing closely guarded trade failure information sooner than it is currrently doing so. Forbes.com reported the development, noting that brokerages have criticized the notion because the information could be a tip-off to proprietary information including trading strategies.

Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology

I was surprised to learn that the sell-side community is funding yet another round of ATSs after investing in regional exchanges and turning their own internalization engines into SEC-registered crossing networks.

In case you haven’t heard, this week Wall Street firms unveiled plans to launch two different electronic matching initiatives — begging the question, do we need another ATS?

Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology

CME is revamping the future exchange’s market data packages. Starting on Jan. 1, 2007, all distribution of CME market data will be repackaged to include market-depth-data, according to the exchange’s release.

Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology

Bank of America launched a pilot of its first foreign exchange (FX) algorithmic trading strategy, and also expanded liquidity access to third party platforms. Clients can access liquidity through multi-bank platforms such as TradingScreen, FXall, 360T and most recently, Integral Development Corp.’s FX Inside.

The bank made the announcement on Monday disclosing several enhancements to its growing range of Electronic Trading Services for foreign exchange clients.

By Tim Clark, Wall Street & Technology

Memphis, Tenn.-based financial services provider FTN Financial Group (FTN) has selected SunGard’s Adaptiv to manage its OTC derivatives business activities with its clients.

By Tim Clark, Wall Street & Technology

Northern Trust recently announced that its Global Securities Lending program has been named the No. 1 lender in North America by borrowers in the 2006 International Securities Finance(ISF) Equity Finance Survey of Borrowers Rating Lenders. Northern Trust was also awarded the No. 1 ranking in multiple service categories recognizing its superior relationship management, connectivity and automation.

By Tim Clark, Wall Street & Technology

Financial services consulting firm Finetix recently announced its partnership with Cadence Capital Group LLC, a New York-based hedge fund specializing in options, aggressive long-short and delta-neutral strategies. According to Cadence cofounder Dmitry Babayev, the partnership was designed, in part, to avoid a hedge fund catastrophe of Amaranth-like proportions.

By Tim Clark, Wall Street & Technology

Mellon Asset Management has achieved significant financial savings estimated by Mellon to be worth $944,000 in infrastructure and software, and $377,000 in support in just two months following its implementation of the Pivotal Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution.

By Tim Clark, Wall Street & Technology

In an effort to help companies minimize the risks to business and information technology (IT) operations created by influenza pandemics and other catastrophic events, SunGard Availability Services and Satyam plan to release new solutions aimed at retaining business continuity in times of crisis. Also, to demonstrate some of its capabilities, Satyam completed a three-day mock drill that simulated a disaster in three Indian cities.

By Tim Clark, Wall Street & Technology

As federal regulators begin to investigate the catastrophic blowup of hedge fund Amaranth Advisors—whose $6 billion in losses resulted from bad bets on natural gas futures—the industry at large is scratching its head as to why the fund adopted such a risky investment strategy to begin with. This begs the question: Could technology, risk management or otherwise, have prevented the Amaranth debacle?

By Cory Levine, Wall Street & Technology

In the modern age of electronic workflow and data management, paper-based processes increasingly are becoming a liability, which is why it was surprising to hear about the large full-service financial services institution that brought together compliance and fraud prevention vendor Actimize, and information services provider LexisNexis.

By Tim Clark, Wall Street & Technology

In an effort to better manage its derivatives portfolio, UTI Bank has selected the RisKompass software solution from Pyxis Systems.

By Tim Clark, Wall Street & Technology

T-Zero, a credit derivative affirmation and connectivity provider recently announced that more than 100 buy side firms have signed on to use its services. Launched just over a year ago, T-Zero was expected to hit the 100 client goal by year end, but strong interest by the buy side is resulting in a substantially faster sign-up rate.

Pipeline Trading Systems LLC, operator of the Pipeline block electronic trading marketplace, announced that Michael Hayes, formerly with buy-side order management systems provider Charles River Development in Boston, joined the company as VP and executive director of client services.

By Cory Levine, Wall Street & Technology

The much-discussed global derivatives market had the spotlight turned its way this week by an official from the U.K.'s Financial Services Authority (FSA). In a speech at yesterday's International Swaps and Derivatives Association regional conference, Thomas Huertas, director of the Wholesale Firms division and banking sector leader at the FSA called out the continued inefficiencies, risks and "sheer sloppiness" within derivatives markets.

By Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology

Lava Trading is offering derivatives trading to its buy-side customers through its multi-broker LavaX platform.

By Ivy Schmerken

Lehman Brothers has acquired a minority stake in BATS Trading, operator of the Kansas City-headquartered BATS ECN, the investment bank announced on Tuesday. Financials of the transaction were not disclosed.

By Tim Clark, Wall Street & Technology

In an effort to bolster its wealth reporting capabilities, Securities America has armed its 1,800 financial advisors with WealthMonitor, a web-based application designed by Albridge Solutions. This recent deal signifies the growing need for wealth management providers to deliver more focused attention to their High Net Worth Individual clients.

By Tim Clark, Wall Street & Technology

The multi billion dollar Abu Dhabi Pensions & Benefits Retirement Fund has selected Northern Trust as its sole global custodian to provide investment risk and analytical services, including performance measurement and attribution analysis.

By Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology

Finally finding a successor to its visionary founder and tireless leader Raymond Killian, Investment Technology Group named Robert (Bob) Gasser, former CEO of NYFIX Inc., as its new president and CEO, starting Oct. 4.

In a conference call with analysts and media on Monday, Killian, 69, said he would remain in his role as chairman of the board and devote his full efforts to a six-month transition.

By Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology

Looking at fast growth in less developed markets, NYSE Group has acquired an equity stake in Marco Polo Network Inc.(MPN), an electronic platform providing connectivity and order routing to equities and derivatives listed on emerging market exchanges. Details of the transaction were not disclosed.

Standard & Poor's Capital IQ, a Web-based data tool designed for the financial services community, announced that its client base doubled to 1,500 since its acquisition by Standard & Poor's in 2004.

By Tim Clark, Wall Street & Technology

On the second leg of the Scottish Financial Services tour, I had the opportunity to speak to different financial services firms and institutions located in Edinburgh, a city that is just as proud of its gothic heritage and architecture as it is of its financial services savvy.

By Tim Clark, Wall Street & Technology

I was recently invited to attend a three-day tour of the financial services community in key areas of Scotland. Intrigued by the prospect to speak face-to-face with executives from the likes of Morgan Stanley, Standard Life Investments, RBS, Franklin Templeton and Citigroup about offshoring different aspects of their operations, this was an offer I couldn’t refuse.

By Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology

Countering the prevailing view that sell-side order management systems (OMSs) are entrenched in so many applications that they are impossible to remove, Thomas Weisel Partners Group switched over to Fidessa as its equity-trading platform, replacing Brass as its OMS.

By Greg MacSweeney, Wall Street & Technology

Despite the generally accepted belief that the user is solely responsible for his or her user name and password, at least one bank -- and probably many more -- has quietly refunded customers who were defrauded by phishing attacks.

By Cory Levine, Wall Street & Technology

Research and ratings authority Moody’s Investors Services has released the first of what it expects to be many ratings on the complex and opaque world of hedge funds. The ratings will be based on what Moody’s has dubbed Operational Quality (OQ), which addresses the internal and external aspects of the fund including valuation process, service providers, accounting controls, regulatory compliance, risk reporting and control, legal and financial structure, human resources, and other operational issues specific to the individual fund.

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