An industry traditionally known for being quite opaque, hedge funds and private equity firms have become increasingly transparent with their investors and regulators since the financial crisis. As competition for client mandates intensified and regulators clamped down on shadow banking activities, alternative asset managers had little option other than to be more open about their strategies and operations. While the industry has made huge progress in terms of its overall transparency, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) argues more work is still needed.

The average tenure of a chief executive officer is said to be around five years, so when BNY Mellon has had three leaders in that space of time, it’s time to ask questions around why this carousel at the top has occurred and go inside the story of the bank’s most recent CEOs.

Drawing comparisons with some of the most rigorous and pressing regulations in recent memory, Phase 6 of uncleared margin rules is set to hit 1,100 buy-side firms. While September might seem a way off, as ever with regulatory preparations, firms are being urged to act now around controls, documentation, testing, and data flows. Wesley Bray looks at the latest round of this regulation and how firms can prepare.

Partnering with State Street and Vanguard to use blockchain and smart contracts to execute a live FX trade could be the tipping point in a long game to bring distributed ledger technology to the doorsteps of the world’s largest custodians and asset managers.

JP Morgan has implemented a strategy under new leadership amid a convergence of securities finance and collateral management to cement its position in the market, proving that innovation in the space isn’t confined to FinTechs.

Peer-to-peer repo had a breakout year in 2021 with conditions playing perfectly into its hands, but how will it fit in with the overall repo market and other types of securities lending transactions in the future?

The implementation of the final leg of the Central Securities Depositories Regulation (CSDR) has been nothing short of tortuous. Despite the industry’s relief following the indefinite postponement of the mandatory buy-in regime, the imposition of cash penalties for trade settlement fails is still happening and could pose problems for market participants.

Since the early days of global custody, Citi has followed a different path to service provision, leveraging its extensive global network. With the evolution of the industry to a more expansive securities services framework, how has Citi confronted the challenges that its peers have faced? Is its model still a differentiator?

A lot has been said about tokenisation as it relates to securities, however there is growing talk about whether or not tokenisation could be applied to mutual fund units or illiquid assets such as private equity.

In late 2021, the $1.5 trillion asset manager Franklin Templeton outsourced its entire global transfer agency (TA) operations to FinTech FIS in a decision that could have major repercussions on how investment firms approach their back-office processes. Global Custodian examines the rationale behind the deal.

Countless benefits of the cloud have seen banks, FMIs and asset managers move to the cloud, but cloud service provider concentration risk is a legitimate concern with three controlling around 60% of the global market share of cloud infrastructure services. We examine the regulatory scrutiny around CSP risk, how financial institutions can mitigate it, and whether the cloud really is as good as it seems.

Investor expectations are for rapid inclusion of tokenisation in mainstream investment strategies, but much still has to be done in terms of storage, transferability and record keeping.

The proposed rule to require securities lending information to be reported within 15 minutes of a loan being made could impose significant operational and compliance burdens on broker-dealers and other market participants.

It has been a bumpy road on the journey to implementing CSDR in Europe, but with communication from legislators over the delayed introduction of mandatory buy-ins, it’s time to assess where we stand.

Client appetite for data is on the rise, and it is something which a number of the leading global custodian banks are looking to capitalise on. Some experts even argue that the delivery of cutting-edge data solutions could eventually generate more revenues for custodians than their traditional services.