I always wanted to try fly fishing, but never really understood where to start. On my recent trip to Colorado, I decided to try a guided fly-fishing activity and it was an absolutely thrilling experience. My friend mentioned an interesting point about fly-fishing saying it is only second to golf as an expensive sport. I [...]
With approximately 19,000 public APIs and 172 being added to the list every month, the dependency and prominence of the programming interfaces are dramatically increasing. In my previous post, “API usage in networks is proliferating; are these interfaces ready for the unexpected?”, I discussed the role the APIs are playing in machine-to-machine communication and the [...]
There’s an iconic TV advert in the UK for a breakfast cereal, where even the ‘hero’ can’t eat more than two Shredded Wheat. It was even cited by David Cameron when he was Prime Minister, when he declared he wouldn’t seek a third term. Created in the US in the 1890s, it was launched on [...]
‘Back office’ really doesn’t do justice to the pivotal role played by banks’ operations teams. It conjures an image of people dutifully beavering away to keep the lights on, happy for those on the frontline that is the trading floor to take the credit and glory. Nothing could be – or at least should be [...]
How banks can avoid falling foul of MiFID II reporting requirements Investment banks know they need to record their trades or face the wrath of the regulator. However, too often it is taken for granted with everyone assuming the recording is happening … until the regulator asks for it and they can’t find it. In [...]
APIs, these new generation programming interfaces are changing the dimension of machine-to-machine communication, causing a major shift in the pace at which software applications integrate and interact with each other. Owing to the benefits offered by these interfaces, the API usage is proliferating in all sectors. According to programmableweb, a popular news source for Internet-based [...]
Give your engineering and ops teams the greatest gift of all – time With the world’s largest institutions facing an existential threat from new fintech challengers, all eyes are on the DevOps team and their in-house lab to drive their own innovation in response. However, burdened with a legacy network and massively complex and interwoven [...]
Why 'walking the floor' at the weekend is no fun for anyone - but there is an alternative It’s the weekend. The markets are closed and the trading floor has fallen silent. The usual cacophony of voices negotiating complex FICC transactions has moved on, making its way to a nearby bar where they can recount [...]
When Standard Chartered announced in its end of year results that it will include a $900 million provision for penalties relating to investigations into FX trading issues, trading compliance was once again thrust firmly into the spotlight. From electronic chat rooms to email, video calls to phone calls, there has been a constant fight by [...]
You could be forgiven for thinking this should be a rhetorical question – the answer is surely none? However, such is the scale and complexity of managing FICC voice trading systems, with all their interdependencies and interoperability requirements, that the reality is very much the opposite. The story of how IT departments are fighting a [...]
