-        198 million securitised derivatives traded in Q3 2021 compared to 102 million in Q3 2020

-        Most traded underlyings were DAX 40, NASDAQ 100 and OMX 30

-        Last 12 months’ trading volumes increased 173% year-on-year

Spectrum Markets, the pan-European trading venue for securitised derivatives, has released its latest Quarterly Business Update, revealing continued positive momentum as it reaches its two-year anniversary.

Third-quarter trading volume grew by 94% year-on-year. 198 million securitised derivatives were traded on the exchange from July to September, compared to 102 million during the same period last year, underlining the firm’s continued strong growth. 

During the quarter Spectrum also saw the one-billionth securitised derivative traded, ahead of its second anniversary on October 3rd. Looking at the first two years of trading further illustrates the progress Spectrum has made, with the number of securitised derivatives traded in October 2020 to September 2021 increasing by 173% on the same period the year before.

“Delivering another strong quarter of organic growth in which we hit the one-billion milestone is a great way to see in our second birthday, and I’m very proud of the progress we have made in those two years,” said Nicky Maan, CEO of Spectrum Markets. “We continue to make very good headway on our long-term growth plan, with the addition of Turbos on equities to our portfolio last month being a particular highlight.”

“Looking ahead, the next 12 months will be about continuing to develop the platform by further improving and extending connectivity options and trading infrastructure, as well as welcoming new members to the venue and exploring new product opportunities.”

During Q3 2021, 33.3% of individual trades took place outside of traditional hours (i.e. between 17:30 and 9:00 CET). 84.1% of this activity was on indices, 8% on currency pairs,7.7% on commodities, and 0.2% on equities, with the most traded underlyings  being DAX 40 (28.6%), NASDAQ 100 (15.2%) and OMX 30 (15.1%).

• Jagath De Silva to spearhead development of Sri Lankan office
• New delivery center to take advantage of local talent to support global clients

Exactpro, a leading software testing services provider for financial market infrastructures, is pleased to announce the appointment of Jagath De Silva as CEO of its new subsidiary in Sri Lanka.

In his new role with Exactpro, Jagath De Silva will spearhead the company’s growth in Sri Lanka with the aim of making use of the leading local talent and harnessing the potential of the new market.

Jagath brings over two decades of fintech and delivery experience to Exactpro, having previously held a number of senior executive and technological engineering roles throughout his 20+ years at the Virtusa Corporation. He was a founding member of the Quality Assurance practice of Virtusa, and also held the position of Software Quality Engineering Head of Sri Lanka from 2014, where he led a team of 800+ Software Quality engineers until his most recent role as head of the Global Tech Factory, an extended engineering arm of their Global Technology Office.

Jagath De Silva sits on the advisory committees of both the Sri Lanka Association for Software Services Companies (SLASSCOM) Technology forum and Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT) Business School.

De Silva’s appointment follows the announcement of Exactpro’s expansion into Sri Lanka in July, enabling Exactpro to continue strengthening support for global clients, including major exchanges and firms in the UK and US. Exactpro will also bring new capabilities to the local market, including the ability for specialised testing and engineering quality into software systems. By engaging at the grassroots level with universities and youth programmes, Exactpro aims to acquire, build and nurture world-leading talent.

Iosif Itkin, CEO and co-founder of Exactpro, said: “We’re thrilled to welcome Jagath to the expanding global Exactpro team. Jagath will be able to utilise his impressive industry and leadership experience to spearhead Exactpro’s new delivery centre in Sri Lanka to the benefit of our international clients and the local business community.”

Commenting on his appointment, Jagath De Silva, CEO, Exactpro Systems - Sri Lanka, said: “I look forward to leading Exactpro’s expansion into Sri Lanka and providing a great opportunity for over 100 local software testing specialists. As the financial sector undergoes further transformation and faces new challenges, assuring system quality has become a boardroom issue, and Exactpro is well placed to meet this challenge being the industry leader in testing services in the global financial market.”

Currently employing over 700 around the world, Exactpro is proud to have been able to attract and retain a team of experienced and talented specialists and looks forward to continuing the delivery of its services to clients out of both the existing and new locations.

Bloomberg announced today that the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB) has adopted its Multi-Asset Risk System, MARS Front Office, a robust and streamlined risk management system that enables the bank to assess the impact of trading activity on the risk profile of its books.

The CEB is a multilateral development bank that provides financing and technical expertise for projects that promote social cohesion and strengthen social integration in Europe. In addition to benefitting from the MARS Front Office consolidated pricing and risk analytics, including pre-trade and daily post-trade valuations, Greeks and scenario analysis, the CEB has also opted to utilise “PnL Explain” reports, a new functionality that helps firms understand fluctuations in market value and the contributions of the various underlying market factors. 

“Streamlining our valuation and risk processes with MARS Front Office has helped us improve our risk monitoring. As a result, we’ve also been able to increase efficiencies, which allows us to better focus our efforts and resources,” said Grégoire Demoulin, Financial Risks Division at the Council of Europe Development Bank.

“To remain resilient, financial firms need timely, transparent and comprehensive risk analytics, as well as efficient coordination between front office and risk management teams", said Leila Sadiq, Global Head of Front Office Risk at Bloomberg. “MARS Front Office provides firms with the ability to immediately understand the impact of a trade on their risk profile, and thus to make better-informed decisions more systematically, reduce risks and improve their operations.”

The CEB is a long-standing customer of Bloomberg and also uses BVAL Derivatives, a pricing service that provides independent valuation for a wide range of derivatives from vanilla to complex, and MARS XVA for counterparty risk management.

Bloomberg’s suite of MARS risk solutions, which are delivered on the Bloomberg Terminal and via APIs, provide risk analytics for cash and derivatives securities. The suite helps traders, portfolio and risk managers manage front office risk, market risk, XVA counterparty risk, credit risk, hedge accounting, as well as collateral and SIMM requirements – all by using a common pricing and data library, providing consistency from front to back. MARS Front Office supports firms with intraday valuation and on-demand risk analytics, advanced scenario and stress test capabilities as well projected cashflows and “PnL Explain” reports. MARS Valuations provides credible and complete end-of-day market valuations for enterprise usage and reporting.

Nutanix has announced the appointment of Yacine Kherbane to Vice President, EMEA Marketing. The promotion is effective immediately and he will be based in Paris.

In his new role, Kherbane will manage a high performing team across EMEA that has been integral to Nutanix’s success of driving a record pipeline, new business growth and increased partner engagement.

“The hybrid multicloud era for enterprises is accelerating, making it an exciting time to be appointed to lead marketing activities in EMEA to help speed up business growth across the region,” commented Yacine Kherbane. “I am looking forward to working closely with my talented team to devise and deploy a comprehensive marketing strategy that will drive customer adoption and migration, to underpin the next phase of growth.”

With 23 years’ experience in IT, Yacine Kherbane is a recognised marketing leader who also enjoys a solid reputation internally since joining Nutanix more than seven years ago. He first joined Nutanix in September 2014 as Marketing Manager for Southern Europe & Middle East, Israel & Turkey.

Ben Gibson, Chief Marketing Officer, Nutanix, said: “Yacine has established himself as an outstanding collaborator across the global marketing organisation. He is ideally qualified to further drive our momentum to help communicate Nutanix’s value in helping companies modernise their infrastructure and build out a hybrid multicloud environment. Yacine’s appointment is testament to his commitment and accomplishments achieved to date within our organisation.”

Meets institutional investors’ need to diminish security risks in this growing asset class

21Shares AG, the world’s largest issuer of cryptocurrency exchange-traded products (ETPs), today announced Copper.co (“Copper”) will provide digital asset custody and staking services to secure the underlying assets of its cryptocurrency ETPs amidst increasing interest from institutional investors.

Hany Rashwan, Co-Founder and CEO of 21Shares, said: “Safeguarding our digital assets in Copper’s award-winning custody architecture provides us with the best security available on the market. With this foundation in place, we can build more secure ETPs for our clients.”

Copper’s custody, which uses Multi-Party Computation (MPC) technology, creates three separate key shards rather than one private key to largely eliminate the risk of exposure when signing transactions. 21Shares will also use Copper’s staking capabilities to manage its digital asset holdings.

As institutional money has flooded into digital assets over the past year, the growth in demand for cryptocurrency ETPs has boomed. These products are an ideal way to gain exposure to cryptocurrency without the complexity of direct investment. 21Shares’ ETPs serve this burgeoning demand, while the custody solution Copper provides diminishes the security risks that institutional investors need to avoid with this new asset class.

Alex Ryvkin, Chief Product Officer of Copper, said: “We are delighted to be supporting 21Shares. They are leading the way in the development of cryptocurrency ETPs, which make up an important part of institutional engagement in this maturing asset class. It is a pleasure to be working with them and we look forward to further collaborating as they grow.”

As of 01 September 2021, 21Shares manages more than $1.8 billion in 17 cryptocurrency ETPs and 77 listings, including the world’s only ETPs tracking Binance, various Crypto Index Baskets and two ETPs with investor staking rewards (Tezos and Solana). Its products are listed on eight regulated European and Swiss trading exchanges.

Banca Progetto, a fast-growing Italian digital and consumer credit bank, also operating in the credit market for small and medium-sized enterprises, has selected an integrated software solution from Wolters Kluwer to manage its risk and finance obligations. The bank will specifically use software modules from the company’s Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) division, as well as the CCH® Tagetik Corporate Performance Management (CPM) software offered by Wolters Kluwer’s Tax & Accounting (TAA) division.

Banca Progetto will specifically use Wolters Kluwer’s OneSumX for Risk Management module which empowers financial services firms to deliver processes, best practices, regulatory intelligence, and the analytics required of businesses in a highly regulated industry. OneSumX for Risk Management, offered by Wolters Kluwer GRC, not only helps achieve regulatory compliance, but delivers superior business value, seamlessly combining financial risk management with regulatory analytics across multiple risk classes. The OneSumX for Asset & Liability Management (ALM) component that will be used by the bank is a centralized data repository combining contract data, balance sheet structures, counterparty and market data.

Wolters Kluwer TAA, meanwhile, will provide the bank with access to the CCH® Tagetik CPM expert solution to capitalize on advanced, automated budgeting, planning and forecasting capabilities. With CCH® Tagetik, Banca Progetto will be able to perform granular profitability analysis on margins in real time. With the combined data, Banca Progetto will gain visibility to the full set of KPI’s and real-time financial reports.

With Wolters Kluwer risk and finance software solutions, Banca Progetto says it can gain greater accuracy, shorter planning cycles and better insight, to improve performance, and empower accountability at all levels of decision making.

“We are incredibly excited to be working with Wolters Kluwer, having sought out a truly integrated approach to managing the full spectrum of finance and  risk reporting obligations,” commented Claudio Caputo, CFO at Banca Progetto. “Wolters Kluwer is highly regarded in the field and is known to put ALM, Risk and Strategic Planning at the center of its endeavors. We look forward to working with the company’s experts on this strategic implementation.”    

“We are delighted to be able to help Banca Progetto ensure its ongoing finance and risk regulatory compliance,” added Kris Van Bavel, Managing Director of Wolters Kluwer Finance, Risk & Reporting for the EMEA region. “We continue to attract a wide range of clients in Italy and throughout the region, and look forward to working with the talented team at Banca Progetto on the implementation of this integrated risk and finance software solution.”

“We have a strong track record with CCH® Tagetik CPM projects and a dedicated team in financial services. With the combination of these expert solutions, we can better help our customers make critical decisions every day and focus on long-term value creation,” said Josep Aragonès Ros, Vice-President & General Manager at Wolters Kluwer CCH® Tagetik for the EMEA region. “Our top priority is to empower Banca Progetto finance team with data-driven insights to drive profitability and boost performance while managing risk.”

Speakers include H.E Gabriel Abed, the Ambassador of Barbados to the UAE; Saeed Hareb Al Darmaki, Managing Director – MENA for CasperLabs; David Johnston, COO at DLTx; Sandeep Nailwal, Co-founder at Polygon; Joel Dietz, MetaMask founding contributor and ArtWallet founder; and Tone Vays, Analyst and Derivatives Trader

CoinAgenda, the premier global conference series connecting blockchain investors since 2014, today announced speakers for its second event in 2021, CoinAgenda Middle East & Africa, to be held on Oct 8-10, 2021 at the JW Marriott Marquis Dubai kicking off Gulf Blockchain Week. CoinAgenda Middle East & Africa will gather thought leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, and blockchain enthusiasts to examine the new and upcoming trends, and changes and advances in the industry. Tickets are only available until Oct 7 on the event page. 

Confirmed Speakers include:

• H.E. Gabriel Abed, Ambassador of Barbados to the United Arab Emirates, Barbados Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Co-Founder and CEO of Bitt Inc.
• David Johnston, COO at DLTx
• Saeed Hareb Al Darmaki, Managing Director of the MENA Regions for CasperLabs, Founder of Sheesha Finance, and Co-Founder of Alphabit Digital Currency Fund 
• Dr. Marwan Al Zarouni, CEO of Dubai Blockchain Center
• Nick Spanos, Founder of Bitcoin Center NYC
• Harry Yeh, Managing Director at Binary Fintech Group
• Kyle Chasse, President and CEO of Master Ventures
• Enzo Villani, CEO and Chief Investment Officer of AirWire
• Logan Ryan Golema, Founding Partner at IPFM
• Ed Prado, CEO and Co-founder of Rair Technologies Inc. 
• Tone Vays, A Derivatives Trader, Analyst and YouTube influencer
• Sandeep Nailwal, Co-founder of Polygon
• Nikola Stojanow, GP at Meta Change Capital
• David Orban, Managing Advisor at Beyond Enterprizes
• Eloisa Marchesoni, European N.1 Tokenomics expert, Blockchain and AI Business Angel Investor
• Jonathan Caras, Founder of Levana Protocol
• Jacques Voorhees, Founder and CEO of Icecap, LLC
• Joel Dietz, Founding Member of Metamask
• Gordon Einstein, Founding Partner of Crypto Law Partners
• Dr. Anish Mohammed, Co Founder & CTO at Panther Protocol
• Ashley Trick, Venture Capitalist at Capital6 Eagle
• Michael Gord, Co-founder and CEO of GDA Group
• Andrey Yanyuk, Founder and CEO of Tempo Storm
• Grigory Rybalchenko, Founder of EmiSwap
• Alex Nascimento, Co-founder of Blockchain at UCLA
• Jason Cooner, Founder and CEO of SDG Exchange
• David Gan, Founder and General Partner of OP Crypto
• Sam Kazemian, Founder of Frax 
• Pedro Riviera, Organizer of Crypto Mondays San Juan

To commemorate its first event in Dubai, the CoinAgenda team has launched a special NFT created by artist, @chissweetart (variations by @Nitramdesign) made specifically for CoinAgenda Middle East & Africa attendees. The NFTs will unlock the replays of the recorded conference content, and all participants, speakers, sponsors and media will receive one. 

CoinAgenda Middle East & Africa will discuss topics such as the future of CeFi and DeFi, investing in fintech, blockchain based solutions, legal and regulatory challenges, and NFTs.  

Confirmed sponsors include:

• AirWire - AirWire is a groundbreaking consumer platform powered by blockchain technology that enhances every day life transactions with next generation mechanisms and incentivization. The current trends of ownership of identity and content are not going away. In addition, users want multifaceted opportunities to monetize their identity and content at the price of their choosing in the marketplace. Our economy is being disrupted by the branding and corporation type structure of the individual. AirWire is capturing this

trend by developing a suite of applications that will evolve the individual into a powerhouse of ingenuity and prosperity.

• DLTx - DLTx is a public company listed on the Norwegian Olso Børs Stock Exchange and is the enterprise vendor for DAOs and blockchain protocols that offers unique access to the public blockchain markets & well-priced access to funding. DLTx has developed a novel way for investors to access compelling and predictable economic returns based on the changes created by the decentralization & disruption of major global industries.
• Transform Group - Transform Group is the world’s leading blockchain public relations, advisory, events, and social media company, with offices in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Toronto, and global headquarters in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Transform Group is dedicated to creating and sustaining industry leadership positions for its clients through superior strategy, relationships, market intelligence and consistent execution.
• Rair Tech - RAIR is a blockchain-based digital rights management platform that uses NFTs to get access to streaming content. The CoinAgenda NFTs are sponsored by Rair.
• Benson Oak Ventures - Benson Oak Ventures supports entrepreneurs to build transformative, global businesses by funding deals as a lead investor and providing significant value-add.
• P2PB2B Exchange - P2PB2B‌ is an advanced cryptocurrency exchange that works for the benefit of its users. In order to make your trading even more convenient and safe, the platform has all the necessary features and tools.
• Blockchain Wire - Blockchain Wire is the industry's first blockchain press release distribution service focused exclusively on news about blockchain, distributed ledger technology companies, ICOs, STOs and other blockchain and cryptocurrency-related announcements. Our global reach includes broadcast and online media outlets, social media sites, industry trade publications, leading blogs and blockchain industry influencers.
• Visionary - Visionary seeks to provide a utility and currency for the efficient exchange of human capital, relationship capital, and financial capital across a network of networks built on trust. 

Following the event, the CoinAgenda series will continue with CoinAgenda Global in Las Vegas, October 25-27, 2021 as part of Las Vegas Blockchain Week followed by CoinAgenda Caribbean in Puerto Rico December 7-9, 2021 as part of Puerto Rico Blockchain Week. 

For more information regarding CoinAgenda, please visit  www.coinagenda.com. Ticket information and registration for CoinAgenda Middle East + Africa can be found at:   https://www.eventbrite.com/e/coinagenda-middle-east-africa-dubai-plus-bitangels-day-tickets-155725821123 

The schedule for CoinAgenda Middle East + Africa can be found at:
https://coinagenda.com/coinagenda-middleeastafrica-2021-schedule/