EMEA Trading Conference Approaches – Regulators Demands High On The Agenda

Stuart Adams, FIX Protocol’s EMEA Regional Director will welcome delegates to the EMEA Trading Conference in London this Thursday.

The conference will be hosted in Billingsgate by bi-lateral communications network FIX Protocol, a non-profit framework which until recently concentrated on pre-trade and trade messaging internationally. In January this year, FIX Protocol announced their expansion into the post-trade sector.

FIX Protocol understood the need to move into the post-trade arena and did so by expanding their service to support straight through processing (STP) from Indication of Interest (IOI) to allocations and confirmations.

The organization has held events internationally for the last twenty years, since its establishment in 1992. Such events are intended to bring to light aspects of interest, challenges and opportunities which are relevant to the international trading world, and to generate dialog in order to draw attention to them.

The conference in London this Thursday has twelve major topics on the agenda, a glimpse of which are as follows:

At 11.00am, moderator Philip Stafford, editor of FT Trading Room will oversee a discussion about the demands of regulators.

“Are Regulators Demands Realistic?” aims to discuss the dynamic of the industry as regulators are placing increasing demands on market participants. Likely questions will be: Are these new requirements reasonable? Can firms realistically meet these heightened expectations? Can regulators actually police the new rules?

This session will look at:

Transparency risk controls, pre and post-trade.

How can firms manage risk? What are the regulatory obligations and operational risk requirements.

Capital requirements encouraging the trend of outsourcing of execution services/

UK vs. US perspective.

Congruently, a discussion regarding MiFID and how the global financial crisis has affected the market structure and the landscape of OTFs with respect to Liquidity Liquidity The term liquidity refers to the process, speed, and ease of which a given asset or security can be converted into cash. Notably, liquidity surmises a retention in market price, with the most liquid assets representing cash.The most liquid asset of all is cash itself.· In economics, liquidity is defined by how efficiently and quickly an asset can be converted into usable cash without materially affecting its market price. · Nothing is more liquid than cash, while other assets represent The term liquidity refers to the process, speed, and ease of which a given asset or security can be converted into cash. Notably, liquidity surmises a retention in market price, with the most liquid assets representing cash.The most liquid asset of all is cash itself.· In economics, liquidity is defined by how efficiently and quickly an asset can be converted into usable cash without materially affecting its market price. · Nothing is more liquid than cash, while other assets represent Read this Term and transparency. Additionally, it will look at whether OTC derivatives will morph into other asset classes will be conducted.

Under the title “OTC and Listed Derivatives – What is their future?”, individual discussion points will include:

The equivalence of Cleared and Non-Cleared Markets – ensuring that the cost of non-cleared is never lower than cleared

How do we ensure transparency?

Standardisation

Swap Futures

Execution Venues

Counterparty Risk Mitigation

The impact on trading systems and Strategies

What is the future of FX NDF's - would listed futures be an alternative?

Concluding the morning’s first discussions will be a presentation by Kevin Houstoun, FIX Protocol Technical Committee’s Co-Chair, and Chairman and Founder of Rapid Addition.

This session will explore how, over the past 12 months, the FPL Global Technical Committee has looked at the business challenges impacting the trading community and developed technical solutions to address them.

It will also cover internal topics such as how FPL’s working groups will continue to develop technical functionalities to support business needs over the coming year. It will provide a chance to gain an early look at the plans in the pipeline for extending the FIX family of standards in 2013.

Additionally, this session will introduce new industry initiatives around technology in trading (beyond the direct activity of FPL) that market participants should be aware of, including FIX testing and wider trade life-cycle performance.

During the late morning liquidity and transparency will be discussed, where

This panel discussion will consider three related sub-topics as viewed through the lens of liquidity and transparency:

Many sell-side trading desks have moved to consolidate their electronic, program and cash desks. Given these changes, how does the flow get managed? What are the benefits of consolidation verses segregation? Are there any down-sides?

Currently execution reports can note OTC trades without granular details on the executing venue. Why is this deeper level of detail so often missing? Is it necessary?

How can firms gain greater transparency about where and how their orders are executed by their brokers? What is available currently and how helpful is this information?

Electronic Trading in Fixed Income is the next topic on the agenda, where discussion will center on regulatory and technological changes are resulting in a major structural shift in the fixed income markets.

Electronic trading is increasingly prevalent, including a proliferation of new bond electronic execution venues with varied business models. This session will detail the implications and opportunities this change presents to bond market participants from the buy-side, sell-side, execution venues and ISVs:

What is the role of the sell-side in the new world?

How many of the new execution venues will survive?

How should market participants handle increasing market fragmentation?

How is FIX being used to address the identified challenges?

Given there is only finite real estate on the buy-side desk; how do we create inter-operability between venues"?

Sassan Danesh, Co-Chair of FIX Protocol Global Fixed Income Committee will moderate the last discussion of the morning on Using FIX for OTC Derivatives

This session will offer detailed exploration of the current derivatives market and scope of FIX support. Attend to explore what enhancements are being added to the FIX specification for OTC derivatives, why they have been developed and how they will be used? Additional points of interest will be:

What enhancements are in FIX to support Dodd-Frank regulatory reporting requirements in the US?

How is FIX being used to facilitate electronic trading of OTC derivatives now that SEFs and OTFs are a reality?

What are the latest developments for facilitating pre-trade credit checks for clearing certainty?

Which extension packs are available now and in the pipeline to support OTC derivatives?

Tectonic Shifts in FX Trading is likely to be of interest in the afternoon session, where various executives including Mark McCall, Product Manager of Electronic Trading, Spot FX Markets at Royal Bank of Scotland will cover subjects relating to new venues which suddenly changed the global FX market in 2012.

This session will address pressing questions both new and renewed, as the old answers no longer apply, including:

New heights of fragmentation – good, bad, or does it depend on who you are?

Anonymity vs. transparency - how do you get the best prices?

Biodiversity vs. specialised markets - does segmenting participant pools help or hinder liquidity?

The technology arms race - how can the mid-tier compete?

The late afternoon discussion will investigate understanding the needs of the European buy-side community.

An influential group of investment management practitioners have joined together and formed the FIX Protocol EMEA Investment Management Working Group to discuss how their needs can be met by the automated trading industry. This session will look at the developments and upcoming areas of focus for this group.

The day's discussions conclude with a cocktail event. The outcome of these discussions will be reported by Forex Forex Foreign exchange or forex is the act of converting one nation’s currency into another nation’s currency (that possesses a different currency); for example, the converting of British Pounds into US Dollars, and vice versa. The exchange of currencies can be done over a physical counter, such as at a Bureau de Change, or over the internet via broker platforms, where currency speculation takes place, known as forex trading.The foreign exchange market, by its very nature, is the world’s largest tradi Foreign exchange or forex is the act of converting one nation’s currency into another nation’s currency (that possesses a different currency); for example, the converting of British Pounds into US Dollars, and vice versa. The exchange of currencies can be done over a physical counter, such as at a Bureau de Change, or over the internet via broker platforms, where currency speculation takes place, known as forex trading.The foreign exchange market, by its very nature, is the world’s largest tradi Read this Term Magnates forthwith.