Nasdaq saw a strong growth for its Nordic Debt Market, including the segments for Corporate Bonds and Sustainable Debt during 2018. While the growth for all debt products listed in the Nordics remains stable at around 4 percent, listed volumes for corporate bonds grew by 13 percent in 2018, and Nasdaq’s Sustainable Debt Market more than doubled in size. The successful track record for listings of Nordic debt products was also a driver behind Nasdaq’s recent launch of a U.S. Corporate Bond Exchange, announced in December last year. In total, more than 6,900 instruments, with...

Boston bank State Street has appointed Nadine Chakar as head of its global markets business. Chakar will report to Lou Maiuri, global head of State Street’s Global Markets and Global Exchange businesses and Charles River Development. In her role she will oversee all aspects of global markets’ trading, including product and operations platforms. Chakar led the global asset servicing teams for Bank of New York Mellon as the global head of financial institutions, head of eCommerce strategy and research, and financial markets infrastructure. Her career began at State Street in 1987...

FIF will be sending representatives later this week to FINRA to discuss upcoming regulatory changes/initiatives for 2019. The meeting will take place this Friday, January 25th. 

FIF CAT Tech Spec Working Group - Reviewed the scenarios portion of the spec, starting with section 2.4 (Order Modification Scenarios) FIF SEC Rule 606 Working Group - Reviewed the meeting materials to be discussed with SEC Staff during a scheduled in-person meeting on Thursday, January 24th. *Due to the government shutdown, the SEC meeting has been canceled FIF Retail Execution Quality Working Group -  Completed an overview of 2018, reviewed impacts of amended rule 606 and discussed potential 2019 topics FIF Back Office Committee Meeting - Provided guidance and insight...

Citadel Securities has appointed Matt Culek the new chief operating officer after over six years at the market maker. Based in Chicago, Culek has served as COO as of December 2018. He assumes a title left vacant after former COO Scott Johnston became chief administrative officer at Citadel’s hedge fund business in June last year. Culek joined Citadel Securities in 2012 and served as COO of Citadel Execution Services for four years before taking on the same role for the equities and options business for five months until May 2017.

Bloomberg announced that its affiliate, Bloomberg Trading Facility B.V., has received authorization from the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) to operate a Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF). Bloomberg’s Dutch MTF, or BTFE, will operate alongside Bloomberg’s UK MTF, and provide services on a cross-border basis from Amsterdam throughout the EU under a MiFID II passport. It will provide eligible participants with request for quote and request for trade functionality for: cash bonds, repos, CDS, IRS, ETFs, equity derivatives and FX derivatives. The trading...

In preparation of Brexit, Cboe Global Markets is opening an office in Amsterdam to serve its EU clients. The global exchange operator will begin by moving the necessary London-based staff to the new office to meet local regulatory requirements of the Dutch Authority for Financial Markets, according to Ed Tilly, chairman, president, and CEO of Cboe Global Markets. He described the selection of Amsterdam as a “perfect storm,” which nudged out the other cities on the company’s short list and that it is ready for the changes that Brexit may require.

Business information provider IHS Markit announced an alliance with AcadiaSoft, a provider of margin automation solutions, to connect the firms’ platforms for managing initial margin. According to a story in MarketsMedia, the partnership will help the non-cleared derivatives community comply with margin regulation, as potentially over 1,000 firms are brought into regulatory requirements in phase four (September 2019) and phase five (September 2020). In connecting their platforms, the integration will help shared customers achieve straight-through processing for the entire margin...

Bloomberg has struck a deal with the China Foreign Exchange Trade System (CFETS) to become the first trading platform to offer access to both China’s interbank bond market (CIBM) Direct and Bond Connect schemes. The agreement with the CFETS means qualified investors can now begin trading onshore Chinese bonds via the Bloomberg Terminal under both initiatives. For the CIBM Direct scheme, Bloomberg’s VCON voice confirmation feature is connected to CFETS for trade ticket communication, so that offshore investors can send trade details to their onshore agent banks on the Terminal....