Post-Trade Forum

The Post Trade Forum's aim is to propagate debate and discussion between senior practitioners in Post Trade Operations in the global securities market; to bring about increased awareness and knowledge across both buy-side and sell-side financial institutions in financial products and be a focal point for firms and practitioners to air views.

Retired Member 

Static Data, a closed topic?

Static Data, quite simply information by which financial services firms can identify where to settle transactions, and indeed identify their counterparts. Then why so difficult? Many claim to have ‘globalised standardised’ reference data platforms, but with around a third of transactions failing due to static differences, and indeed in the event of...

01 July 2013

Retired Member 

Why do post trade STP projects fail?

Industrialisation of operational processes, improving settlement efficiency, focus on cost, STP – these are all common phrases or terms to indicate a plan to improve settlement rates, reduce failure and inherent cost, and of course to offer better client service. To judge how successful these are on an industry level is a big ask, but those that a...

03 June 2013

Retired Member 

Post Trade Services: why the buy side needs to commit

With the multitude of regulation being debated or approved for implementation, the financial sector must navigate myriad new rules. Post-trade operations, typically an area of activity driven by the sell side, though more recently also by larger buy side firms, are also challenged by the slate of new regulatory or market events, whether that be EM...

10 May 2013

Gary Wright Analyst at BISS Research

Anti-money laundering - the final solution

Money laundering continues to be a scourge on financial services. Recent cases of some of biggest and most respected banks clearly demonstrate that as time goes by the risk of money laundering keeps increasing. Despite decades of measures and huge expenditure on anti-money laundering systems the figures show we are losing the battle. Indeed the si...

15 August 2012 /regulation

Gary Wright Analyst at BISS Research

Bringing greater efficiency to payments

The payments industry has been a sticking point in financial services for quite some time. Vested interests and a concentration of far too much business between too few banks have created development inertia, best evidenced by the SEPA slow train. SEPA was virtually a universal agreed development, if you take banks out of the equation. However, th...

14 August 2012

Gary Wright Analyst at BISS Research

Identity management the key to linking operations

Historically banks have built business and operations in silos, and over decades, despite numerous mergers and purchases creating the proverbial one stop shop, the typical bank still maintains a vertical business and operation model. This was not the plan but it’s the one that has been allowed to exist. Nowadays, the problems of banking silos are ...

17 July 2012 /payments /regulation

Retired Member 

The ESMA OTC Derivatives End User Carve Out

ESMA has released a Consultation Paper on the draft technical standards for trade repositories, OTC clearing and CCPs. Discussion of non-financial counterparty exclusions begins on page 14. OTC contracts that protect non-financial counterparties against risks "directly related to their commercial activities and treasury financing activities&qu...

30 June 2012

Retired Member 

Hurtling Towards Harmonisation

I spent most of yesterday reading the Financial Stability Board's OTC Derivatives Markets Reforms Third Progress Report on Implementation. Thrilling stuff if you were desperately awaiting your next installment of regulatory waffle on harmonisation of global regulation and infrastructure for derivatives. What struck me most powerfully about this re...

19 June 2012

Gary Wright Analyst at BISS Research

The Importance of T2S

Some people have doubted the importance and value of T2S and have rightly questioned the cost of building the system against the value it will provide. Indeed the UK is still not joining despite a growing list of countries CSDs signing up. Is the right for the UK? What is the long term benefit of T2S? Oddly the crisis in the Eurozone and the possi...

15 June 2012

Retired Member 

Repo and OTC Derivatives as Financial Crisis Accelerators

Following links a few days ago led me to a fascinating journal article by Professor Mark Roe of Harvard Law School. He suggests that the preferential treatment of OTC derivatives and repo collateral transfers in advance of bankruptcy skews incentives to make the financial system much more leveraged and more risky than it would be otherwise. Th...

16 May 2012