27 JUNE – 3 JULY 2013
DATA
DataArt to offer mobile portfolio monitoring
ataArt is planning to launch a mobile portfolio surveillance capability, according to Oleg Komissarov, senior vice president. The offering is a joint effort between DataArt and Kaazing, a web socket protocol specialist. The platform can be used on any HTML5-compatible device and will bring near real-time messaging information to tablets and smartphones, and it can plug in to any desktop browser, Komissarov told WSL last week on the sidelines of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association’s Technology Conference in New York. It will also handle hundreds of thousands of messages per second due to built-in technology from Kaazing that closes off all other traffic except for the messaging traffic. Additionally, since it works directly in the device’s browser, it can work behind, in front of or sans-firewall since HTML5 and web socket protocols offer their own layer of encryption for security, Komissarov noted. “This makes the technology very attractive when you want to monitor in a secure way,’ Komissarov said.
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Data Art last week also announced a risk aggregation tool that allows portfolio managers to compile up to one million positions across a firm’s holdings and view them by instrument, liquidity, market cap exposure, region and sector, according to a demonstration of the platform by Komissarov. The vendor has also recently launched a free Form PF capability that firms can download and use to submit the form or completely automate the filing process, according to Komissarov.
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TECHNOLOGY
Fidessa’s Grob: Proposed EU dark pool rules ‘hysterical’
Proposed rules aimed at limiting off-exchange trading within the Eurozone to 8% or less are “flawed”, according to Steve Grob, director at Fidessa. Rules proposed under the forthcoming MiFID II regulations in Europe seek to cap all off-exchange trading at 8% and force firms that exceed that cap to trade STEVE GROB director at Fidessa only on-exchange for six months before they are allowed to seek liquidity elsewhere, Grob explained in an interview. “It does seem [regulators] should
have a bit more measured approach [that’s] a bit less hysterical,” said Grob. The problem, according to Grob, is the rules group all off-exchange trading into one category and label it as bad. With all the different ways European firms trade – broker crossing networks, dark multilateral trading facilities (MTFs), negotiated trades (that are reported to the tape) and other genuine off-exchange trading – one could take the cynical view that the regulators are politicizing the issue, Grob said. “There’s no respect for the notion of achieving a better outcome for clients trading off exchange,” Grob said. Should these rules go into effect as proposed, there could be a situation where a broker has a buy order and a sell order in the same security and has no choice but to send both to the exchange, said Grob. That would create a very inefficient business model as firms would not be able to internal-
ize the same levels of flow, cutting deeper into already shrinking profits, he added. “The whole point of these rules is getting the best possible outcome for the investor, that should be the test,” said Grob. A spokesperson for the UK Financial Services Authority did not return a call for comment. DATA
Big data management could be future key to success
The way financial firms decide to manage their stores of big data could be a key factor in their success in the future, according to Marc Alvarez, senior director of reference data infrastructure. In an interview during the second day of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association’s Tech