CEO Letter - August 2017

By: The WFE Team Aug 2017

Dear Colleagues,

After a summer break, welcome to your August 2017 issue of Focus.

The WFE and its members are united in their grief following the passing of Magnus Böcker in July. Magnus, who was known to many of us personally, had decades of leadership experience in the exchange industry. He became CEO of OMX AB in 2003, having joined the organisation in the 1980s. He was President of NASDAQ OMX during 2008 and 2009, after spearheading the merger of OMX and Nasdaq in 2008, and was CEO of the Singapore Exchange from 2009 to June 2015.

Magnus, who was also associated with the WFE for decades, most recently served as Chairman of the WFE Governance and Nomination Committee (GNC) from 2012 to 2015. Our deepest condolences to his family and his many friends for their loss. You can read tributes from friends and colleagues in the magazine this month.

This month, our CEO Interview is with Ramon Monzon, President & CEO, Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE). Mr Ramon, who has been in-role since May 2017, takes us through his first few months in the job, and shares his exciting vision for PSE.

At the end of July, we held the bi-annual WFE Technology Conference in London with partner Imperial College London. The two-day event showcased the very best academic research and industry applications of exciting technology in the market structure space, such as RegTech, Artificial Intelligence and machine learning.

As part of our review of the conference, in this month’s issue we are delighted to welcome four contributors who each give us their viewpoints on the topics we discussed at the event.

Firstly, following his participation on the Market Infrastructures, Post Trade and Fintech – Finding the Value panel at the conference, Arjun Jayaram, CEO, Baton Systems tells us why the post-trade space is ready for innovation. We then have a contribution from Brendan Bradley, Co-Founder, Seismic Foundry, who looks back at the IT as Enabler or Investment? panel that he took part in.

Frank Hatheway, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, Nasdaq and Tony Sio, Head of Exchange & Regulatory Surveillance, Market Technology, Nasdaq were both panellists at the conference, on RegTech and AI panels respectively, and have co-authored an article on how both RegTech and AI enable compliance and enhanced oversight for exchanges.

Finally, to conclude our summary of the Technology Conference, Deutsche Börse’s Stefan Teis, SVP, Business & Product Development writes about the challenges of using Blockchain in the financial sector.

Olumide Orojimi, Brand & Corporate Communications Thought Leader, The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) shares news from NSE following its recent launch of a knowledge platform, X-Academy, to further promote financial literacy.

As part of the WFE’s mission to engage with important stakeholders on behalf of the industry, we have Martin Steinbach, Global & EMEIA IPO Leader, EY discussing the driving trends in today’s global IPO market.

The WFE Research Team shares the WFE’s recently published half year highlights, and shows H1 2017 performance relative to H1 2016 for 68 exchanges across key metrics.

There is less than a week to go until the 57th WFE General Assembly & Annual Meeting (6-8 September, Bangkok, Thailand). We are thrilled that more than 300 senior industry leaders, stakeholders and media are registered for this marque event in the global exchange and CCP space. As ever, the conference looks set to be a vibrant and content-rich event. The theme this year is around the role of exchanges and CCPs in fostering economic growth and development, and this topic is the basis of a joint research report that will be launched at the event by The WFE and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Safe travels to Bangkok, and we look forward to welcoming many of you to the land of smiles very soon.