Wall Street Letter VOL. XLV, NO. 30 - Sept. 23, 2013 | Page 8

NEWS

The partnership opens up avenues
for new capabilities, which is what
initially drew Charles River to partner
up with SJLS, according to Gallacher.
Both Levinson and Gallacher
pointed out the companies are crossselling the service to their clients, who
share a common background.
“We have over 350 clients on the
buyside ranging from institutional to
boutique,” said Gallacher. “Our intention is to open the equity solution
to clients across the gamut.”
POST-TRADE

SWIFT survey:
Regulatory reporting,
manual confirms top
risk, cost sources
08

Regulatory reporting requirements
and the use of manual confirms
are the top two sources of risk and
cost to firms in the area of posttrade, according to a survey recently
released by SWIFT.
The utility’s Post-Trade Survey
2013 indicated that, among global
respondents identifying as brokerdealers, investment managers or
custodians and outsourcers, while
regulation is the number one driver
for automation, regulatory reporting was identified as the number
one source of risk and cost for firms
in the current environment by the
largest number of respondents. The
use of manual confirmations came in
second place as the top concern.
The survey also focused on the
affirmation process, highlighting
that the process has not been widely
adopted by firms in certain asset
classes.
For example, in responding to a
question as to whether more than
75% of trades were positively affirmed
using either central or local matching methods, respondents indicated
that the practice is least common in
commodities and over-the-counter

derivatives. That is in spite of the fact
that an overwhelming majority noted
positive affirmation positively affects
timely settlement.
In order to support automated
affirmations, broker-dealers and
custodians were revealed as using
the highest number of systems (three
each) to support the process, while
investment managers use just two.
The report indicates the number of
systems used by the different groups
may be inversely correlated.
“As investment managers consolidate their processes on fewer systems,
broker-dealers and outsourcing
providers can be forced to spread out
ever more widely,” the report states.
More systems mean more fragmented
processes, higher costs and potentially higher risks.”
TECHNOLOGY

Confluence
develops global
expense offering
Confluence, a data management vendor for the investment management
space, is in the process of developing
a new version of its recently released
expense processing platform designed
for more global use, according to
Paul Soltis, North American market
manager.
The vendor released its first
expense processing platform for mutual funds, exchange-traded funds,
insurance funds and Ucits in May.
The platform, Unity NXT Expense
Processing, automates and standardizes the process and allows fund
administrators to access the application at home or abroad.
Soltis told WSL a new version of
the offering is in development in a
move to provide more global appeal.
“It will be multilingual, multi-currency, it will be global by design,” he
explained.
The effort to incorporate more
visible global offerings is a theme

for the vendor and one that is being
incorporated across different aspects
of the business, Soltis said. As an
example, he cited the recent acquisition of Data Agent, announced
earlier this month.
While a significant element of the
acquisition was to give Confluence a
line in to the alternative fund space,
the offering will also help its clients
deal with global regulations, such as
AIFMD.
Soltis also said the vendor is
working on an offering to support
shareholder reporting requirements.
The offering will be intended to provide more control and eliminate risk
inherent in the process, he said.
TECHNOLOGY

Thomson Reuters
looks to expand fixed
income support
Thomson Reuters is expanding its
support of automated fixed income
trading in the coming year, according
to Claudio Salinardi, head of fixed
income.
The vendor most recently added
cash bond prices from Société Générale to its multi-asset electronic trading platform in a bid to offer as much
bond liquidity as possible, according
to Salinardi. The platform offers data
on 26,000 unique debt issues across
government, agency corporate, covered and sovereign bonds.
In a response e-mailed to WSL,
Salinardi said the availability of highquality, dealer-attributable prices is
key to automated trading. “In 2014,
Thomson Reuters plans to provide
further support for this automation
across fixed income markets,” he
added.
Salinardi also noted some of the
need for the offering is being driven
by fragmentation that is coming
into the space. With corporate bond
dealer holdings ramping down and
a subsequent reduction in liquid-