[ A D V E R T O R I A L ]
Tim Hogben, Chief Operating Officer,
ASX
Bruce Perry, Head of Operations,
APAC, Barclays
Luc Renard, Head of Financial Inter-
mediaries & Corporates, APAC, BNP
Paribas Securities Services
Gary O’Brien, Head of Custody Prod-
uct, APAC, BNP Paribas Securities
Services
Lance Chen, Network Relationship
Manager, Clearstream
with that is firms will overlook the use
case of adopting new technologies.
Yet conversations are becoming more
progressive, with many now at the end of
the latest regulatory cycle and can instead
focus on being competitive, with invest-
ment in technology being closely tied to
achieving that goal. Conversations be-
tween market infrastructures, securities
services firms and the sell-side are not
only focusing on the post-trade, but also
on the execution side of the business.
The conversation around blockchain is
now about how the technology can pro-
vide an end-to-end experience, stripping
away the inefficiencies of execution while
also reducing back-office risk as well as
how it can interact with other digital
technologies like Robotic Processing Au-
tomation (RPA), chatbots, data analytics
tools and APIs to provide greater insight
to industry members.
The sell-side would also potentially
have to prepare for another scenario
where a sudden wave of regulation could
upend individual technology platforms
and systems where an update would be
needed for each one. The example of ASX
could show how running a common, mu-
tualised infrastructure will allow brokers
connected to comply without the need of
a company-wide update.
Collaboration is key
As market participants continue to work
out how this technology will affect them,
collaboration with market infrastructures,
technology vendors and custodians will
become more important than ever to both
minimise the impact on their operations
and gain the benefits on offer.
The deployment of blockchain for the
48
Global Custodian
Spring 2019
Stock Connect trading scheme can be
seen as the perfect example of collabora-
tion working in action, given the fact that
the technology is being used to improve
a specialised segment of the settlement
process.
The potential danger of not working
with other counterparties, market infra-
structures, tech vendors is that the cost
of constantly redesigning and coming to
market with an operating model will be
extremely high.
One way market participants could
avoid this is the creation of standards for
new technologies to not only guarantee
the continuation of business, but allow
new and legacy systems to communicate
and interact with one another. Standards,
being new or based on existing ones such
as SWIFT’s ISO2002, would provide
interoperability for investment banks and
regional players that are facing multiple
markets and multiple organisations.
In light of this, custodians will have to
look at their own operating model and
their service offering and adapt not only
to keep up with the new technology, but
also to ensure they stay relevant. Custodi-
ans will have to take a step back to evalu-
ate all of the change currently happening
in the industry and analyse how they
can deliver new solutions to the sell-
side community, leverage the post-trade
infrastructure, and create value-added
services based on the data that sits on
these ledgers.
The Asia-Pacific region is taking a lead
in evolving the conversation and debates
around new technologies, and custodians
will play a central role in helping market
participants evolve with the changing
technological landscape.
Mohamed Dadabhoy, Regional Head
of Security, FX & Cash Management,
Credit Suisse
Albert Lai, Executive Director, Head
of Operations & Administration, Dai-
wa Capital Markets
Jon Rout, Business Development
Director, APAC, Digital Asset
Joe Parsons, Deputy Editor, Global
Custodian (moderator)
Daniel Poon, Head of Market Data,
HKEx
George Yang, Senior Vice President,
HKEx
Hwee Lay, Operation for Equities &
ETF, Ifast
Kaman Wong, Executive Director,
Wealth Operations, Nomura
Nico Torchetti, Head of Market
Services, SGX
Alex Kech, Head of Securities &
FX Markets, APAC, SWIFT
Part 2, coming Summer 2019
With so much technological change now
occurring, firms in the region will have
to undertake a business-wide review
of what model to adopt whilst paying
particular focus to their own internal
priorities and the other change factors
that are ongoing throughout the region
at this point in time. The second part
of this roundtable write-up will feature
in the Summer 2019 edition and will
cover what other pressures Asia-Pacific
firms are facing and what they can do to
achieve operational efficiencies.