The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has named Bridget E. OConnor Managing Director and Chief Technology Officer (CTO), as well as expanding its public release of credit default swaps (CDS) market data.
Bridget O’Connor joined DTCC on August 31 and will be responsible for overseeing the information technology infrastructure at DTCC. This includes core networking services, processing and messaging systems, distributed systems and business continuity to protect DTCCs post-trade processing capacity as well as managing all data transmission and telecommunications.
Most recently, OConnor had been Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Global Head for Business Continuity for Lehman Brothers Holding, Inc., a position she had held for the last years of her 19-year career with Lehman, before which she served in a number of other technology management positions. Prior to joining Lehman Brothers, OConnor worked as an applications architect for AT&T Bell Laboratories.
Bridgets leadership in developing and maintaining high-quality infrastructure systems and business continuity programs on Wall Street is both well known and highly regarded, said William Aimetti, DTCCs Chief Operating Officer and President, who OConnor will report to. He continued: Our technology infrastructure organization plays a key role in helping the broker/dealers, banks, mutual funds, insurance carriers, buy-side community and other third-party financial intermediaries who make up DTCCs customer base, lower the cost to access their trading parties and leverage our services through what is essentially a networked community of users. And as our customers increasingly are headquartered in Europe as well as the U.S., we face new challenges both in extending the reliability and low-cost infrastructure to new customer segments and in supporting new asset classes of financial products worldwide. Bridget brings the global experience and record of success that we believe will continue to differentiate DTCC in the future.
OConnor will replace Vincent Hilly, who has announced plans to retire in July 2010. To ensure a smooth transition, OConnor and Hilly will work collaboratively until Hilly retires.
At this busy time, DTCC is also expanding the data gathered and stored in its Trade Information Warehouse (a global repository). DTCC collates information on OTC credit derivatives and performs critical post-trade processing functions such as automated calculation, netting and central settlement of payment obligations, as well as settlement of credit events such as bankruptcies, this is now to include information on the legally binding records from the previous week, month and year, in addition to the data for the current week.
Because nearly all credit derivatives transactions are registered and maintained in the Warehouses global repository, the industry and regulators worldwide are able to assess from a central vantage point the value and risk exposures of the market, which is essential in times of crisis, said Stewart Macbeth, DTCC managing director and head of the Trade Information Warehouse. Transparency has also been enhanced in the marketplace, as the repository is able to provide the investing public and regulators with a view of the data registered in the Warehouse, which we release publicly on a weekly basis.
The Warehouse historical data will not include full information on the more customized trades only basic data on the contracts are available to provide regulators with a better view of the total CDS risk being taken on by key firms.