This Week: Philippine Stock Exchange, IBM, Cboe, Esma & More

Philippine Stock Exchange Halts Trading Indefinitely

On March 17, the Philippine Stock Exchange suspended trading until further notice as a safety measure for traders and employees throughout the coronavirus outbreak.

The decision came after Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte placed the island of Luzon under “enhanced community quarantine,” said Ramon Monzon, president and CEO of the exchange, in a memo.

IBM Cloud Texas Data Center Disrupted

IBM Cloud’s Dallas, Texas, data center experienced a significant disruption on Tuesday, affecting hosted services such as Watson AI, IBM Cloud, and DB2, for several hours, reported The Register.

A spokesperson for IBM later told the outlet the outage was due to a connectivity issue and that issue had been resolved.

Finastra Experiences Potential Breach

Tom Kilroy, chief operating officer of Finastra, announced Friday afternoon that the company had noticed “potentially anomalous activity” on its systems. As a result, the company took a number of its servers offline while it investigated. [More on this as information becomes available.]

Cboe Launches BCP Webpage for Covid-19 Updates

Cboe Global Markets launched a webpage detailing its business continuity plan (BCP) amid the developing coronavirus situation.

All of Cboe’s markets remain open. Technology and operations teams are monitoring trading closely. Any published updates related to the operation of Cboe’s business and exchanges will be posted to the Covid-19 BCP webpage. 

Esma Extends Consultation Response Deadlines Amid Coronavirus

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s securities markets regulator, has extended the response date for all ongoing consultations with a closing date on or after March 16 by four weeks.

The decision was made in order to offer market stakeholders time to reprioritize and adapt their business efforts amid the coronavirus pandemic. The affected consultations regard: guidelines on internal controls for CRAs, guidelines on securitization repository data completeness and consistency thresholds, the Mifid II/Mifir review report on the transparency regime for equity, and four others.

BitGo Launches Specie Insurance to Custody Clients

BitGo has introduced new insurance protections for digital assets, which include $100 million for assets held in BitGo Custody. Clients gain the ability to purchase their own dedicated excess limits above BitGo’s $100 million policy. Clients who purchase Excess Specie Insurance will be named as Dedicated Customer Loss Payee in the policy, ensuring an additional layer of protection.

Key features include adjustable limits and prorated premiums so that clients can opt to pay for only relevant periods of protection.

BitGo is working with specialty commercial insurance broker Woodruff-Sawyer & Co., who has partnered with Paragon Brokers out of London on this program.

Itiviti and Gemini Partner to Offer NYFIX Connectivity to Crypto Holders

OMS and connectivity provider Itiviti has partnered with Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange and custodian, to allow crypto investors to trade via NYFIX, Itiviti’s FIX-based order routing network.

NYFIX is a broker-independent, vendor-agnostic FIX community of more than 60 participants, connecting buy-side, sell-side and trading venues, and delivered as a managed service.

Tabb Group Shuts Down 

The board of Tabb Group, a 17-year-old capital markets research and consulting firm, closed the business down on Friday, March 13, announced founder and research chairman Larry Tabb in a tweet.

“We will be shutting down as of today and putting assets up for sale,” he continued.

In a memo to clients, the group cited Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, as a hit to its industry events and conference business, which was a major source of revenue, reported the Wall Street Journal.