UBS Group AG and HSBC Holdings Plc are bringing robots into bond sales, a corner of banking still considered by many to be off-limits to the onward march of automation according to a story in Bloomberg news. UBS has created a machine-learning algorithm that shows its salespeople the most likely counterparty to buy or sell a bond. HSBC is developing a bot that will send asset managers suggestions for bond transactions tailored to their existing trading patterns. The Swiss bank started rolling out the tool, known as Client Scout, in May after testing it earlier in the year. It...

Nasdaq has expanded the scope of its crypto data platform Quandl to include fundamental crypto rating and price forecasting data. Sourced from crypto investment management fund and data provider, Blockchain Investments & Co., the Quandl platform will be supplemented with a range of crypto-asset data including descriptive, rating, correlation, forecasting and sentiment data. The move is designed to increase informed decision making and confidence in – what Nasdaq referred to as – an “upcoming asset class”, supporting crypto research, investment, and regulatory...

Credit Suisse has made moves to automate its equities post-trade processes by replacing its third-party outsourced platform and deploying Torstone Technology’s cloud-based system. The investment bank’s business in Canada has decided to move away from its outsourced model to increase efficiency across the wider business and to consolidate its processes. It opted to deploy Torstone Technology’s Inferno platform following a review of its operations through detailed scoping analysis. Torstone confirmed that the project to migrate Credit Suisse to its Inferno platform is...

Cboe Global Markets, Inc. announced it plans to introduce a new Lead Market Maker (LMM) incentive program with enhanced market quality requirements on its Cboe Listed Marketplace for exchange-traded products (ETPs). The proposed LMM program aims to provide a better trading experience for issuers and investors by incenting Lead Market Makers to demonstrably enhance market quality in the form of tighter markets and deeper liquidity for Cboe-listed ETPs. Under the planned program, LMMs that meet certain quoting obligations and market quality requirements would receive daily incentives based on...

On Friday, August 30, FINRA CAT and the SROs published an updated Industry Member CAT Technical Specification and an updated CAT Scenarios Document.  FIF will review the recent changes during the the Tuesday, September 3rd FIF CAT Tech Spec Requirements Working Group meeting.

This week, FIF will be disseminating an a call for participation on a working group that will be formed with the intent of providing FINRA comment on Reg Notice 19-27.  The intent of this working group will be to assess the current rules in place designed to protect seniors from exploitation, and to provide recommendations on potential amendments to the rule as well as to assess any potential systems impacts.

Macquarie Capital made a minority investment in matching platform provider DeepBench, and will be utilizing the firm’s enterprise capabilities to facilitate high-touch access to Macquarie’s research analysts and other staff. 

ABN AMRO is launching impact-based banking, a proposition to help entrepreneurs accelerate their sustainability shift by entering into a strategic partnership with Ecochain. Ecochain is a technology company that leverages software to combine sustainability and financial data. After a successful pilot project involving clients from a range of industries, ABN AMRO signed the contract with its new strategic partner Ecochain on August 23, 2019. Ecochain has developed software that captures the link between sustainability and financial data, affording clients insight in their company’s...

S3, a compliance and trade analytics software company, announced the appointment of James Augustyn as Vice President of Customer Service effective immediately. Augustyn will be responsible for supporting S3’s clients with the aim of strengthening the firm’s relationships with users of its products. Augustyn has more than 25 years of experience in the financial services industry, most recently in the areas of client management and regulatory technology.