BNP Paribas Securities Services said it’s working with Digital Asset to develop apps for the distributed ledger (DLT) platforms being developed by the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) and Hong Kong Exchange (HKEX). These will use DA’s smart contract language DAML. The first solutions will be delivered in 2021. The apps or dApps will be for real-time trade and settlement, and the bank says they will enable clients that haven’t integrated with the DLT platforms to nonetheless benefit from the real-time workflows offered by DAML.

Barclays announced that it will deploy its latest FX trading and pricing engine in Singapore, under the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) FX Trading Hub strategy. Barclays will be building out a local instance of BARX, one of the leading FX trading systems globally. This will include the rollout of the latest BARX Direct technology which combines next-generation pricing algorithms with ultra-low latency co-location connectivity. With the BARX infrastructure being based in Singapore, local and regional market participants will be able to leverage existing BARX functionality while...

Nasdaq plans to migrate its markets to the public cloud over the next decade, a move that was planned before this year but validated in part because of the coronavirus pandemic. Several of Nasdaq’s 28 markets in North America and Europe will be hosted in the public cloud in about five years, with all of its markets expected to migrate over the next decade, said Brad Peterson, the company’s chief technology and information officer. The markets are currently run on-premise in data centers. Scalability was a major advantage for Nasdaq when the pandemic hit earlier this...

Cowen has confirmed it will acquire the investment banking arm of Dallas-based MHT Partners, as it looks to deepen coverage of middle-markets and private equity investors. Cowen has signed a definitive agreement for the acquisition, which is subject to FINRA approval and expected to close in the fourth quarter this year. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed according to a story in The Trade news. The MHT Partners investment banking team, based primarily in Dallas and San Francisco, is expected to join Cowen under the agreement.

Bloomberg has increased the number of third-party vendors providing alternative data to clients via its web-based marketplace, Enterprise Access Point, to more than 60. Data License clients can now access the expanded alternative data from third-party data providers, which Bloomberg said represents a three-fold increase since it launched the Enterprise Access Point marketplace in February 2019.

Instead of sending Outlook invites on FINRA CAT's behalf for their checkpoint calls and webinars, FIF will post all FINRA CAT calls and webinars on the FIF Calendar located here: https://fif.com/index.php/calendar. Clicking on the FINRA CAT placeholder on the FIF calendar will reveal the specific FINRA CAT meeting URL where you will find the dial-in information, materials (usually uploaded right before the call) and option to save the meeting to your personal calendar. Another way to keep ontop of FINRA CAT meetings would be to simply bookmark and regularly...

FIF CAT Tech Specs Working Group. The Working Group reviewed new reporting scenarios published by FINRA CAT relating to the “too late to cancel” scenario and error handling for named errors, reviewed the issues addressed by FINRA CAT during the September 8 FINRA CAT Tech Spec Working Group call, reviewed the CAT clock synch survey prepared by FIF, and reported on upcoming FINRA CAT webinars. FIF CAT CAIS Working Group. The FIF CAT CAIS Working Group held its second call. The Working Group discussed how to report LTIDs for relationship FDIDs, the proposed CAT CAIS procedures for...

FINRA CAT is in the process of soliciting industry member feedback on behalf of its CCO in support of the Plan Processor’s annual review of the CAT clock synch and time increment reporting requirements. FIF has prepared a survey for members to complete. FIF requests that members please return completed responses to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  by Friday September 18. All responses to FINRA CAT will be anonymized. If you did not receive the survey document from FIF, please email This email address is being protected...

On July 16, 2020, FINRA issued Regulatory Notice 20-24 requesting comments on proposed changes to TRACE reporting relating to delayed Treasury spot and portfolio trades. The comment period for the rule proposal expires today. On September 7th, FIF arranged a call with FINRA staff. During the call, FINRA staff provided background information on the rule proposal and responded to questions from FIF Members.  FIF will be submitting a comment letter on the rule proposal.