PEOPLE MOVES
NEWS UPDATE
P O S T-T R A D E
BlackRock veteran and former global
COO for the fixed income division,
Steve Rafferty, has joined Swiss asset
manager GAM as chief operating officer
in a newly-created role. Rafferty joined
the firm on 4 November after 16 years
with BlackRock, where he oversaw the
operations of $2 trillion in fixed income
assets, before departing in May this year.
Executive vice president and Cboe
Europe president, Mark Hemsley, will
retire from the exchange operator in
February 2020. The exchange operator
announced that David Howson, chief
operating officer at Cboe Europe since
2013, will succeed Hemsley as executive
vice president of Cboe Global Markets
and president of Cboe Europe as of
January 2020.
The head of execution sales for Europe
at Barclays is set to depart the bank
after just one year in the role to take
up a similar position at Citi. Matthew
Cousens joins Citi as EMEA head of
platform sales, as the investment bank
looks to expand its equities franchise,
specifically its electronic trading services
and distribution.
LCH has named Matthew Fetta as the
clearinghouse’s new chief operating
officer for its SwapClear and listed rates
business. Fetta took on the role on 9
December, having spent the last decade
with hedge fund giant Citadel, and was
most recently the deputy chief operating
officer for its global fixed income group.
JP Morgan automates
derivatives margin
payments with DLT
JP Morgan has developed a DLT-based system
to speed-up and automate post-trade
margin payments.
U
S investment bank JP Morgan has developed a distribut-
ed ledger technology (DLT)-powered platform to redeploy
cash and collateral balances to global clearinghouses more
efficiently.
The system was developed in partnership with DLT
specialist, Baton Systems, and has been integrated with
JP Morgan’s internal proprietary system to automate and
synchronise existing post-trade processes. It removes the
need to coordinate with multiple systems, reports and
spreadsheets for end-to-end automation of margining and
collateral workflows.
“The technology we have developed reduces the time
needed to process the entire collateral workflow from hours
to near real-time,” said Anthony Fraser, head of global clear-
ing operations and trading cost management at JP Morgan.
“We’re already seeing faster, more efficient payments,
reconciliation and reporting for all parties in the collateral
lifecycle.”
JP Morgan added that the system aims to address the chal-
lenges associated with excess funds across clearing workflow
by integrating settlement instructions for custodians into
existing treasury systems without dismantling technology
infrastructures. It also synchronises the collateral subscrip-
tion process.
“Our collaboration with JP Morgan is accelerating the
movement of assets,” said Arjun Jayaram, CEO and founder
at Baton Systems. “This is a truly ground-breaking solu-
tion that removes the need for manual intervention in the
collateral process by integrating with financial institutions’
collateral and cash systems, leaving their existing processes
and systems in place.”
Both firms concluded that the technology is now being
scaled across global clearinghouses to facilitate more com-
plex clearing arrangements. Major derivatives firms are also
now able to deploy the new system.
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