About a-team Marketing Services
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry

A-Team Insight White Paper

Adding Context to Alternative Data

The investment management community’s embrace of alternative data has created a tsunami of new data sets that are packaged by specialists to offer unique insight into very specific industry segments and business activities. But as valuable as this data is, it has its limitations: alternative data can tell us what’s happening now, based on recent...

Minimising Market Manipulation False Positives: The Trick is in the Data

The focus on market manipulation has probably never been higher. In the wake of the Financial Crisis of 2008, with its multiple market manipulation scandals, regulators have ratcheted up compliance requirements for firms. The media has also sharpened its focus – the cost of a controls failure in this area can be catastrophic in terms...

How Banks and New Venues Can Create a Future-Proofed Data Business

A 7-Step Process for Banks and New Venues to Create a Future-Proofed Data Business If you are a bank or a new trading venue, you may be aware that there is significant value in the market data that is generated by your business activities. But you may not know how best to monetise that data...

Applying Emerging Technologies to Real-World Business Challenge in Financial Services

Today’s world of technology is evolving at lightning speed for financial services firms. Terms like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and distributed ledger technology (DLT) bandied about, technology conversations seem to be all about hype. The reality is that financial services firms need to understand the impact that these new technologies could have and...

MiFID II: Navigating the Emerging Liquidity Landscape

The September 1 deadline for full implementation of the Systematic Internalisation (SI) regime marked the beginning of a whole new liquidity landscape, with firms on both sides of the equation grappling to understand the long-term implications of the new system on Europe’s financial markets. Navigating these waters in the coming months will be challenging for...

Systematic Internalisation Under MiFID II: What’s Needed Now

From September 1, 2018, firms within the scope of MiFID II that breach volume thresholds set by ESMA on August 1, 2018 for internal matching of client orders will be required to register as systematic internalisers (SIs) and operate within the SI regime detailed in the regulation. Sounds pretty straightforward, but that is far from...

Post-trade ETD – where all the sticking plaster got used!

The fund management industry’s shift to passive funds and embrace of smart-beta funds over the past decade or so has shaved margins to the extreme. In this environment, operational efficiency becomes an existential issue. Across a broad swathe of asset classes, front-office technologies have kept pace with massive changes in market structure driven by regulation...

MiFID II: What’s Next?

With regulators indicating that they will enforce MiFID II in the second half of this year, how robust is your compliance solution? How ready is it to take on the oncoming requirements of the regulation? And to what extent do you need to review and renew systems to achieve a sustainable, industrialised and cost-efficient solution?...

MiFID II: Industrialising the Response Using UL BRIDGE

Many firms within the scope of Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II) struggled to meet the regulation’s deadline of January 3, 2018 and are now waking up to the fact that many of the processes put in place for implementation day are not sustainable. To achieve and maintain MiFID II compliance over time...

Trading Infrastructure Testing: Taking an Enterprise Approach

Over time, trading operations have become complex networks of different applications using diverse technologies tied together into an overall trading infrastructure. Testing has evolved in a similar ad hoc way and, as a result, firms often lack a coherent testing strategy. This could leave them open to trading errors on the scale that pushed Knight...