With less than three days to go until Sibos Dubai, Sibos tweeted that registration numbers are at 7,019 this morning. Fabian Vandenreydt, head of Markets Management and Core Business Development at SWIFT, talks to Global Custodian about the specific themes the securities industry will be paying attention to at the event, including the reconfiguration of the back office and middle office landscape.
What specific securities industry issues will gain the most traction among delegates at Sibos?
I think clearly regulation. There is a tsunami of regulation that is taking shape in the US and Europe and so far less so in the rest of the world. That has tremendous implications on the way market infrastructures and custodians and the rest of the industry will have to reconfigure themselves. I think everything that relates to compliance, including Dodd Frank, Basel III, CSD regulation and AIFMD will have an impact and are starting to have an impact on the evolving roles of securities market infrastructures, central counterparties or CSDs and some custodians. Some custodians are trying to become CSDs and clearly some are focusing on some portion of the business and looking for a vertical niche as they cannot get to the critical mass with the flow business. So I think regulation is topic number one and driven by that the reconfiguration of the back office and middle office landscape in securities in general.
Are you expecting any changes or announcement at this year’s Sibos on how these custodians and CSDs will be structured in future given the regulatory change?
I strongly suspect we will see an announcement related to collateral management. Clearly, with the way the market infrastructures have positioned themselves there is a lot at stake as far as collateral management is concerned. I think the market infrastructures are trying to defragment the collateral pool and create linkages so that there is more collateral and good collateral available. So there will be an announcement in that area and also from market infrastructure and the large custodians, especially the ones that are very active in triparty services.
Comment on the significance of Sibos being held in the Middle East this year?
I expect some large announcement as to how the global players can increase their footprint and their relevance in helping sustain the growth we’ve seen in the Middle East.
What we see is a high attendance from people within the region – nearly close to 15%. There is a sense of happiness here to see lots of local players attend and I think that is growing every day in terms of registrations.
For the players here it’s very important to note that the region was relatively immune to the crisis and credit crunch and now it’s more open to attracting more investors, more institutional investors and to do that they are very aware they need to promote standards but also they have to have more focus on market infrastructures, on making sure the scalability of the platforms is there to support the growth. We will see more CCPs and more international flow. Today it’s very much equities based but we will see more diversification to other asset classes, which will necessitate other infrastructures or improvements. There is a sense of energy here, which I also see from a securities standpoint.
GC Friday Interview: Fabian Vandenreydt, head of Markets Management and Core Business Development, SWIFT
With less than three days to go until Sibos Dubai, Sibos tweeted that registration numbers are at 7,019 this morning. Fabien Vandenreydt, head of Markets Management and Core Business Development at SWIFT, talks to Global Custodian about the specific themes the securities industry will be paying attention to at the event, including the reconfiguration of the back office and middle office landscape.