This Week: SS&C unveils T+1 preparedness scorecard; S&P/DTCC; SmartStream & more

SS&C Technologies has rolled a T+1 preparedness scorecard. 

In May, the US, Canada, and Mexico will move from a trade-data-plus-two-days (T+2) settlement cycle to T+1. The aim of the scorecard is to help existing users of SS&C’s Trade Matching & Settlements platform to get ready for that shift, Parthiv Patel, managing director of middle office services for SS&C Technologies, tells WatersTechnology.

“Many clients already have electronic matching, but there is still a lot of confusion about how to optimize their processes to meet T+1 requirements,” he says. “SS&C’s T+1 scorecard provides clients with a comprehensive view of how certain bottlenecks in the post-trade processes could impact their T+1 readiness.” 

Patel says the scorecard relies on inputs from the client’s trade booking behavior—such as timeliness, frequency, and data elements—as well as inputs from other third parties and analysis from SS&C’s service teams. The collection of that information is automated and a dataset is made available for further analysis.

“As an outsourcer, we have the transparency and intelligence to examine what process nuances are causing investment managers to trail the industry matching, allocation, and affirmation benchmark,” he says. “For example, is it a mismatch in the trade shape preventing straight-through matching, the frequency of cancel/rebook transactions, or the timeliness of trade booking that is affecting your timing? We take an in-depth look at the client’s processes and make optimization recommendations.”

SS&C’s system will check the following inputs:

• Trade communication to SS&C’s Trade Matching and Settlements platform 
• Percentage of allocations submitted and matched 
• Allocation submission and affirmation rates 
• Bottom 10 broker matching rates (to inform which counterparties may be slower to respond)

SS&C then aggregates that data and combines it with “known client processes to suggest a review of areas where problems may occur,” Patel says. “The report helps managers visualize their trading process and see breaks or gaps as part of the full picture, which in turn can help the organization enact the needed changes.”

S&P Global, DTCC team up on T+1 offering

Also in the world of T+1, S&P Global announced plans to collaborate with the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation to deliver a joint solution to support clients impacted by upcoming US T+1 settlement requirements. The organizations plan to link S&P’s Onboarding Accelerator platform with DTCC’s ALERT service with the aim of increasing transparency, efficiency and straight-through processing within institutional trading.

Onboarding Accelerator users will be able to query the status of critical standing settlement instructions (SSI) reference data for a particular account and market directly within the platform. The SSI status query can be done at the point of account opening or at any time during the trade lifecycle. The vendor says this will result in fewer trade breaks and settlement fails, while providing increased efficiency in support of a T+1 settlement cycle. The SSI status information for trade permissions will be available via an ALERT API.

The integration is projected to go live before July.

SmartStream provides derivatives data for Emir Refit

SmartStream Reference Data Services (RDS), a provider of financial reference data, has expanded its derivatives data service, providing insights into futures-related transactions. The company says that this additional offering will help clients meet reporting requirements under Europe’s Emir Refit.

Additional attributes have been integrated into the RDS’s listed derivatives service, and a standalone over-the-counter derivatives service has been set up to support the reference data needed for commodity transactions under the new Emir regulation.

Set to take effect in April, the Emir Refit will increase OTC derivatives transparency reporting requirements in Europe. It will introduce 74 additional reporting fields for in-scope instruments, and require a more specific methodology for computing some values.

Broadridge launches futures and options SaaS trading platform

Broadridge has expanded its derivatives trading suite with a global futures and options software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform.

The platform, designed for futures commission merchants and agency brokers, will offer order and execution management capabilities for listed derivatives markets along with pre-trade risk management and middle-office functionality.

To address the fragmentation of workflows in sell-side trading technology, Broadridge’s F&O platform is built on a distributed architecture, allowing users to customize each workflow channel and optimize specific workflows to meet regional demands.

Canoe Intelligence unveils asset data tool

Canoe Intelligence, a provider of alternative investment-related services for institutional investors and wealth managers, has launched functionality giving users access to asset-level data. The tool uses document collection, tracking, extraction, and organization technology to show users the underlying holdings of alternative investments. This information, taken from General Partners’ documents, would otherwise be aggregated manually by investment teams.

The new offering includes a holdings summary (showing the portfolio’s composition), operating metrics (data and analysis of transactional attributes for each underlying asset to help show how well they are performing), and transaction attribution (details on intra-quarter investor attribution to the various assets).

Hazeltree upgrades treasury management workflows

Treasury and liquidity management SaaS provider Hazeltree has rolled out a series of enhancements to its treasury and liquidity management platform. The upgrades focus on increased security and ease of remote access to allow hedge fund and private market clients to process transactions from outside of the office.

Key functionalities of the upgrade include removal of the requirement for IP whitelisting so that users can access Hazeltree’s platform from a laptop, a mobile approver app enabling clients to approve transactions on the go, and wallets for displaying bank fees.

In a press release, Hazeltree said that it would continue to invest in upgrades throughout 2024.

Sterling Trading Tech expands into Asia

Order management system provider Sterling Trading Tech is expanding into Asia. STT has already launched its Korea operations, with Hong Kong and Singapore to follow. It will deploy its multi-asset class OMS both locally and cross-border (focusing on US operations of Asia entities). This announcement comes on the heels of its recent onboarding of KBFG Securities America.

CQG completes AI PoC for futures market

CQG announced the completion of internal testing and a proof-of-concept using live data that uses machine learning to predict futures market moves. The new ML initiative aims to offer retail traders and buy-side firms, including proprietary trading firms and hedge funds, tools for identifying new trading and analytics opportunities, guiding trading strategies, and managing their positions. 

CQG CEO Ryan Moroney said, in a statement, that the vendor’s AI in a live environment was consistently able to predict with 80% accuracy whether the next movement in the E-mini S&P 500 futures contract would be up, down or unchanged.