CEO Letter - August 2018
Dear Colleagues,
Welcome to the August issue of Focus. We are delighted to unveil a brand-new, modern look-and-feel for the magazine, whilst still staying true to the vibrant, quality, industry-led content that has always been its mainstay. We hope you like the new format, which allows for easier navigation between thematic content, and past issues, along with greater visual impact. The Focus website is also aligned to the new WFE website which will be launched next month – more to follow on that in due course.
Two years since Dominic Stevens became CEO of ASX, we talk to him in the Executive Profile section about his first 24 months in the role, and his strategic plans for the exchange. ASX is well known for its early adoption of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), and we hear from Dominic about how the exchange is moving towards the implementation stage of replacing its CHESS equities post-trade system with DLT.
We are delighted to welcome a contribution from Craig Donohue, Executive Chairman & CEO, OCC, who writes about the firm’s new Financial Safeguards Framework (FSF). The FSF, which determines how OCC sizes its clearing fund and allocates contributions to the clearing fund from OCC’s clearing members, will be implemented from 4 September 2018.
In our Q&A, we welcome Kate Eged, Head of Precious Metals, LME. It has been just over a year since the launch of LMEprecious, and we hear from Kate about how the platform has performed in that time, and plans for the next phase of development.
This month we celebrate the 35th anniversary of Cboe Global Markets introducing options on broad-based stock indexes to the financial world - the S&P 500 Index options (SPXSM). From a modest beginning, Cboe’s SPX options have now grown to be the most actively traded index option in the US.
Recent research from Nasdaq, in collaboration with Celent, into capital markets infrastructure technology, has uncovered three important trends: the factors that are driving changes in market infrastructure; how MIs are using technology to support business strategies; and how technology spend is evolving. In this month’s issue, we look at the key takeaways from the report.
We are really excited about the very special partnership between B3 and Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP). They have announced a collaboration whereby 66 masterpieces by Brazilian artists dating from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – including Anita Malfatti, Alberto da Veiga Guignard, Benedito Calixto, Candido Portinari and Emiliano di Cavalcanti – have been loaned by B3 to the museum, which will curate them for 30 years. We feature three of these incredible masterpieces in the magazine.
The WFE Regulatory Affairs team has proposed enhancements to the FSB’s cyber lexicon this month, and you can read our full response to the consultation in the magazine. The WFE welcomes the work done on the lexicon, as it is helpful for the market infrastructure industry and all stakeholders to have a consistent set of terms in this complex area.
The WFE Research Team published its H1 2018 Market Highlights report earlier this month, reviewing a first half marked by domestic market capitalisation and benchmark indices scaling record levels at the outset, followed by a global stock market correction and a return to volatility from February 2018 onwards.
The WFE Research Team has also published its latest dashboard, monthly insights, and market statistics.
With just five weeks to go until the WFE's 58th General Assembly & Annual Meeting, 2-4 October 2018 in Athens, Greece, hosted by Athens Stock Exchange, the action-packed agenda is now confirmed, with 16 full sessions taking place over the two-day conference. Topics range from Brexit for markets, corporate governance, ETFs, and crypto platforms, through to the launch of the WFE’s new Sustainable Principles. We look forward to gathering the market infrastructure industry together to debate these business-critical issues.
For further details, do visit the event website, and please remember to register here.
We hope you have managed to enjoy a break over July or August. As we head into September - with that inevitable ‘back-to-school’ feeling – it’s hard to believe there are just four busy months left of 2018. But we look forward to sharing some of that time with you in Athens in October. Thank you.