FIF is creating a new Compliance Working Group. To sign up for this new working group, update your profile here.

The SEC staff has advised FIF that the SEC is considering the expansion of Rule 605 to cover options. The SEC staff has requested input from FIF on this topic. The FIF Rule 605 Working Group is working on a set of recommendations relating to Rule 605 for options. The next meeting for this Working Group is scheduled for Tuesday, October 12, 2021 at 2pm ET.

On September 30, 2021, members of the FIF Rule 606 Working Group met with the staff of the SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets to discuss the challenges with Rule 606 look-though for options. The next meeting of the FIF Rule 606 Working Group will be scheduled for the week of October 11. During this meeting, Working Group members will review a draft request for exemptive relief to be submitted by FIF to the SEC.

FIF Data and Technology Committee. On the September 29, 2021, Data and Technology Committee call, Cboe's Angelo Evangelou discussed the recent paper by Cboe titled “Cboe Advocates for Targeted Equity Market Structure Reform”. The Committee also reviewed capacity, latency and volume data for the prior month for the equity, options, currency, crypto and futures markets. Please find this month’s meeting materials here and the capacity statistics deck here. FIF Front Office Committee. On September 28, 2021, the Front Office Committee reviewed applicable updates and...

Stifel Financial Corp. announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire 100% of Vining Sparks and its affiliates. Terms of the transaction, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2021, were not disclosed. Established in 1981 and headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, Vining Sparks has approximately 275 employees in 13 offices throughout the United States. The firm provides institutional fixed income brokerage, balance sheet management and underwriting services to more than 4,000 institutional clients in all 50 states, with a core focus on depository institutions,...

HSBC announced it has launched a new innovative solution on Google Cloud to manage credit risk more efficiently in its trading portfolio. Using Google Cloud technology, the HSBC Risk Advisory tool enables the bank’s traders and risk managers to run multiple “what if” scenarios simultaneously and quickly, to identify capital requirements necessary to cover potential rating downgrades and default risk of credit products, such as corporate bonds. The HSBC Risk Advisory tool harnesses the power of cloud computing, where billions of data points are generated, with results delivered in minutes,...

LiquidityDirect clients are now able to seamlessly invest cash in commercial paper (CP) and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) while also being able to leverage a new search application that introduces Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) ratings onto the portal. The addition of these new investment options and ESG analytics represents the next step in the expansion of LiquidityDirect, BNY Mellon’s short-end investments platform, to deliver a comprehensive range of liquidity management and investment choices across the short end of the curve.

Northern Trust has launched an automated solution for initial margin calculation to help asset manager and asset owner clients comply with global regulations governing trading of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives. The solution, made available to clients in advance of a key deadline for implementation of Uncleared Margin Rules (UMR), was developed as part of Northern Trust’s integration of Acadia’s margin management solutions and fully complements Northern Trust’s full suite of collateral and OTC processing capabilities. Through its partnership with margin and risk management expert...

BQuant is the first data science solution from Bloomberg that is designed specifically for financial markets and offers operation-ready access to Bloomberg’s range of high-quality, multi-asset-class financial and alternative data sets. The financial industry’s leading firms have invested heavily in building systems to support quantitative analysts, who use mathematical models, voluminous data sets, and computational power to evaluate investment strategies and generate new ideas. BQuant Enterprise offers analysts more efficient workflows for creating, validating, and putting their models in...