Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. announced it has acquired the remaining equity of MERSCORP Holding, Inc., owner of Mortgage Electronic Registrations Systems, Inc. (MERS). ICE has owned a majority equity interest in MERS since 2016. Price and terms of the transaction were not disclosed. MERSCORP owns and operates the MERS System, a national electronic registry that tracks the changes in servicing rights and beneficial ownership interests in U.S.-based mortgage loans. Earlier this month, ICE successfully moved the MERS System infrastructure to the ICE Mahwah data center, an integral...

Trading and market access technology provider Vela has appointed a former head of technology at the New York Stock Exchange as its chief technology officer, according to a story in The Trade. Mr. Visconti will be based in New York and will report to Vela’s chief executive officer Jennifer Nayar, focusing on the firm’s technology strategy and supporting the growth and development of its product stack and services. He will also lead the global development team and work alongside senior managers to bolster the firm’s position in the market, Vela said. Prior to joining...

Thomson Reuters announced that it has closed the sale of an interest in the company's Financial & Risk business to private equity funds managed by Blackstone. An affiliate of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and an affiliate of GIC invested alongside Blackstone. The Financial & Risk business is now known as Refinitiv. The Blackstone-led consortium now owns 55 percent of the equity in a new corporation created to hold the F&R business (Thomson Reuters retains a 45 percent equity stake, at an overall valuation of US$20 billion). Through this investment, the new...

FIF CAT Tech Spec Review Working Group -  Finished our review of the Tech Spec and will hold a final meeting today to review the comment letter to ThesysCAT FIF Cybersecurity Working Group - Held our Cybersecurity meeting Thursday where we focused on a case study of the NotPetya attacks and how your firms can combat these types of threats  FIF Front Office Committee Meeting -  Focused on order management and trading system issues resulting from proposed rule changes (SEC, FINRA, SROs) and other initiatives impacting exchange traded equities and options, and OTC...

FIF will be holding our Annual Chicago Financial Markets Event on Tuesday October 16, 2018 at Cboe Global Markets (400 South LaSalle Street, Chicago). Join us for a luncheon and a panel discussion on current market transparency trends. Please Register Here

FIF will send representatives down to Washington DC this week to attend the Annual STA Conference. This year's event will feature speakers such as Tim Hockey from TD Ameritrade, Robert Cook from FINRA and Brett Redfearn from the SEC, along with several others. You can find the agenda for this year's event here.

Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. announced that Andrew Surdykowski has been named the company’s next General Counsel, succeeding Johnathan Short, who intends to retire after 14 years in that role. Surdykowski, currently the company’s Senior Vice President and Associate General Counsel, joined ICE’s legal team in 2005, overseeing a range of matters for Intercontinental Exchange. Prior to ICE, Surdykowski was an attorney with McKenna, Long & Aldridge (now Dentons), practicing in the corporate law group, representing clients on matters regarding securities, mergers and...

IPC, a provider of secure, compliant communications and networking solutions for financial market participants, announced that the Cboe Cryptocurrency Feed Summary and Feed Premium, which provides data on three pairs, Ether to Bitcoin, Bitcoin to USD and Ether to USD, are now available on the IPC Connexus Cloud. Cboe Global Markets, Inc. is one of the world’s largest exchange holding companies, while IPC’s Connexus Cloud is a solution for data, voice and enterprise communications and compliance with an ecosystem of over 6,600 market participants.

Thomson Reuters has partnered with Moody’s Analytics to offer a classification solution for conducting the Solely for Payment of Principal and Interest (SPPI) tests required under the IFRS9 accounting standard. The solution allows fixed-income investors to automate SPPI tests for securities in their portfolios by providing data on over 1.2 million corporate, government, and structured securities globally. In addition to securities held in clients’ portfolios, the solution permits users to conduct additional due diligence on bonds that have not been purchased. Full explanations...