FIF will be hosting a CAT Roundtable on Thursday, July 23rd at 3:00pm et focused on best practices associated with the upcoming CAT Phase 2a and Phase 2b linkage validations.  The webinar will feature speakers representing several industry and regulatory stakeholders.  Registration is open to both members and non-members. To register, please follow the link here.  

FIF CSDR/EU Buy-In Working Group - FIF submitted a letter to ESMA requesting guidance in support of our members' continued efforts in meeting CSDR's mandatory buy-in provision on  February 21, 2021.   FIF raised several issues related to cross-jurisdictional settlement.   FIF CAT Committee - FIF began an initial review of the Phase 2d Technical Specification, with a focus on the Equities-only updates, including the new Phase 2d Requirement mandating a new OrderID be assigned when an order is modified and cancel/replaced. FIF also reviewed the issue...

TrackInsight, the global independent ETF analytics platform, has named Nasdaq its exclusive distributor for North America. TrackInsight operates a platform dedicated to ETF search, analysis, and selection aimed at professional investors. With over 100,000 users and 2,500 qualified professional investors using the platform for their day-to-day ETF screening, TrackInsight offers information on over 6,000 Exchange Traded Funds listed globally. TrackInsight Global View will be made available to Nasdaq customers through Nasdaq’s Quandl platform.

Refinitiv announced Lipper Fund ESG Scores to serve as a pivotal data-metric in the transition to sustainable investing – providing comparisons at the fund level for fund managers, advisors and investors. Refinitiv Lipper Fund ESG Scores are designed to transparently and objectively measure ESG performance, commitment, and effectiveness across 10 main themes (emissions, environmental product innovation, diversity and inclusion, human rights, shareholders, etc.) based on publicly-reported data on constituents within the fund across the three pillars Environmental, Social and Governance....

ICE Benchmark Administration has launched the initial beta version of the ICE term SONIA reference rates (ICE TSRR), which measure average expected SONIA rates over one month, three months, and six-month tenor periods on a daily basis. Calculated via a waterfall methodology, ICE said the reference rates use tradeable bid and offer prices and volumes for eligible SONIA-linked overnight interest rate swaps on the central limit order books of BGC, TP ICAP and Tradition’s Trad-X. If the venues do not provide eligible input data for the first level of the waterfall calculation, the second level...

BNY Mellon and Deutsche Bank have jointly developed a new API-enabled foreign-exchange (FX) solution that can dramatically improve confirmation times for restricted emerging-market currency trades. The digital solution, initially being applied to custody FX transactions in Korean Won, aims to reduce the pre-trade lifecycle to seconds from hours, minimizing the operational burden and manual intervention that can be prevalent in emerging-market custody FX. The solution is already live in Korea, with the Indonesian Rupiah and the Indian Rupee targeted next. Subsequently, it will be...

FIF CSDR/EU Buy-In Working Group - FIF began the drafting of a comment letter in response to The European Union's request for ESMA to conduct a review of CSDR. The letter will highlight the questions/issues that industry members need additional guidance on before the CSDR go-live date. The letter is due to ESMA no later than July 10th. CAT Options Working Group - FIF began an initial review of the Phase 2d Options Specification, focusing upon the Paired Order ID and the Multi-Leg Event as reflected in section 5.2 of the June 30 Technical Specification.  The group also...

Nasdaq has announced the launch of the Marketplace Services Platform. The platform provides next-generation marketplace capabilities spanning the transaction lifecycle to facilitate the frictionless exchange of assets, services and information across various types of market ecosystems and machine-to-machine transactions, including, but not limited, to standard financial assets, tokenized assets, credit card receivables, loyalty points, real estate, insurance contracts, gaming, wagering and more. Complementing the rollout out the Marketplace Services Platform, Nasdaq is now...

SIX announced that its Triparty Agent system has successfully gone live. By launching its new Triparty Agent, SIX strengthens the Swiss financial infrastructure and its commitment to the repo and securities finance business. The Triparty Agent with its user interface Collateral Cockpit™ manages on behalf of the counterparties secured transactions such as repos. This encompasses the automated allocation and settlement of collateral and covering of margin calls. Thanks to the highly automated system, no manual interventions are needed to perform these processes while operational risks are...