A wave of consolidation has hit high-speed trading firms and brokers in the past few months, and many are blaming low volatility and weak trading volumes in the face of rising compliance and market data costs.

Starting with electronic market-maker Virtu’s acquisition of rival KCG in April, Two Sigma Securities buying options market-marker Timber Hill in May, and Cowen gobbling up Convergex a few weeks ago, trading firms are reassessing their business models, including the need for speed.

Open Banking, the implementation entity set up by the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) to enable a new, secure way for customers to take control of their financial data and share it with organisations other than their banks, is pleased to announce the release of its Accounts and Transaction Information and Payments Initiation API Specifications.

Thomson Reuters today announced the launch of Thomson Reuters Labs™ – The Incubator.  Located in Switzerland, the Incubator will host early-stage entrepreneurs building next-generation products in big data, advanced analytics, distributed ledgers, artificial intelligence, machine learning and other transformational technologies.  As part of the official program, startups will receive access to

Just like banks, a growing number of exchanges worldwide have already taken a serious look at the way they can leverage blockchain technology. This in order to ‘get rid of’ the existing time consuming, cost inefficient and risky operations. Ranging from Abu Dhabi to Toronto they are experimenting with various use cases ranging from settlement, over-the-counter trading to proxy voting. Others have just started and have or are having hosted blockchain events such as the Jamaica Stock Exchange (Blockchain Masterclass) and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (Hackathon) not wanted to be left behind.

One of the HR issues that the banks have been wrestling with as part of their Brexit insulation and response strategies is the contrast in labour laws in other EU jurisdictions. Put simply, it is harder and more expensive to terminate employees in Frankfurt or Paris than the UK, other than in exceptional circumstances. The news that Frankfurt is offering banks an exemption for “risk takers” from some of these strong protective rules is an incentive to the banks.

NEX Group plc, a financial technology company at the centre of global markets, announces today that its Swap Execution Facility (“SEF”), NEX SEF Limited (“NEX SEF”), went live on 3 July 2017.

Finastra today announced that its UK-based service bureau (formerly part of D+H) has been awarded the SWIFT Shared Infrastructure Program (SIP) version 2 for 2016 label. 

Masabi, the global leader in transport mobile ticketing and innovative fare collection, today announced that it has deployed mobile ticketing on trams and buses to HTM Personenvervoer NV, the public transport company for The Hague, in The Netherlands. 

Now in its second operational year, the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has today published its annual report for 2016/17, which reviews its work over the past year.

Following Mobey Forum’s recent quarterly member meeting in Edinburgh, Executive Director, Maikki Frisk, caught up with Douglas Kinloch, VP Software Protection & HCE and host member, Inside Secure, to get his take on the future of digital security in today’s banks.

Everyone is talking about the digital user experience. For banks, is a security trade-off necessary to deliver the optimal UX?