JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon says the bank will spend $350 million over the next five years to develop employee skills needed for the future market, according to an interview on CNN. The company, which previously made a $250 million five-year commitment to job training in 2013, said it will invest in a variety of initiatives, including a development program for community college presidents and new research. One of the bank's projects will be a partnership with the Aspen Institute. JPMorgan will fund a program for community college presidents that will focus on curriculum development,...

The Options Price Reporting Authority, LLC (OPRA) is preparing a Request for Proposal (RFP) to evaluate service providers for OPRA. OPRA is the registered securities information processor (SIP) responsible for the collection, consolidation and dissemination of last sale reports and quotation information generated by the exchange trading of securities options in the United States. OPRA’s current contract for the technical operations and maintenance of the OPRA system is soon to expire. Jordan & Jordan has been hired to prepare the proposal and manage the selection process of a...

FIF held its first meeting on FINRA Rule 4370 (BCP) last Wednesday. FIF briefly reviewed FINRA’s request for comment on FINRA Rule 4370 and began to elicit feedback and comments focused on the eight discussion questions provided by FINRA.  FIF will be submitting comments based upon feedback provided by our members.   If you would like to join this subgroup, please send us email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

FIF CAT Working Group - Reviewed the feedback on the SROs proposed error correction enhancements along with the feedback on the current FDID construct in preparation for an in-person deep-dive session with the SROs. FIF FINRA Rule 4370 (BCP) Subgroup - FIF reviewed FINRAs request for comment on Rule 4370 and began elicting feedback on 8 questions provided by FINRA. FIF CAT Tech Spec Working Group - Continued the review of the CAT tech spec beginning with section 4.4 (Order Accepted Event). FIF SEC Rule 606 Working Group -  Provided a brief update on recent...

Trading and market access technology provider Vela has connected its trading platform to the FIX order gateway at French investment bank BNP Paribas. The connection means that BNP Paribas’ global clients will gain access to Vela’s Metro trading platform for options pricing, execution and risk management, alongside integration and access to the bank’s FIX order gateway. FIX gateway systems allow access to local and international markets, and real-time electric processing of orders across assets between exchanges, brokers and counterparties globally. Vela’s Metro...

Nasdaq Inc. and Bcause LLC, creator of a full-stack cryptocurrency ecosystem, announced that Bcause’s markets will operate on Nasdaq’s matching engine, with clearing and market surveillance technology provided by the Nasdaq Financial Framework platform. The technology is expected to go live in 1H 2019 with the launch of the new Bcause spot cryptocurrency market. In addition, Bcause has filed with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to become a designated contract market (DCM) and to establish a derivatives clearing organization (DCO). The ecosystem...

As the cohort of portfolio managers and traders with computer science degrees has grown, so has their preference for writing code instead of using electronic spreadsheets. Bloomberg is now offering its market price database and pricing analytics in a Python environment through the Bloomberg Python MARS API.

Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. announced that IBKR institutional and retail clients can now trade stocks on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE).  IBKR will connect clients to TASE via a banking intermediary based in Israel. Interactive Brokers serves more than 607,000 clients worldwide and operates on more than 120 exchanges in 32 countries. The company enables clients to fund their account in 23 currencies and trade assets from a single account in multiple currencies, including the Israeli shekel.

US investment bank Citi is taking its FX pricing and trading engine to Singapore, with backing from the country’s regulator. Citi’s trading engine was developed in-house, and the bank has already launched the platform in London, New York and Tokyo, with Singapore being the fourth country it will distribute prices to clients. The Monetary Authority in Singapore (MAS) expressed its support for the FX pricing and trading engine as a significant boost in the development of Singapore as an Asia liquidity hub. The platform includes proprietary pricing and a hedging algorithm, and will...