Seema Hingorani, entrepreneur and former CIO and the New York City pension plan, has joined Morgan Stanley Investment Management as Managing Director, Bloomberg reported.

Hingorani will help oversee relationships with the investment manager’s largest clients and create a new training program to develop talent, Bloomberg reported, citing a Morgan Stanley memo.

In 2015, Hingorani founded Girls Who Invest as a way to get more women involved in portfolio management and leadership at asset management firms. As Hingorani told Markets Media, the remit was to build a pipeline of talented, vetted women who are excited about going into asset management, across all asset classes including allocators of capital.

Nearly 700 U.S. university students have participated in Girls Who Invest’s on-campus summer intensive program and online intensive program since 2016, according to the organization’s website.

Hingorani is on the Advisory Board of Markets Media’s Women in Finance Awards program and is a previous award winner.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission hopes good things come in threes as it has offered a second 90-day comment-period extension for proposed changes to Certain Swaps Data Repository and Data Reporting Requirements.

The proposed amendments would alter the policies and procedures established by the SDRs to confirm the accuracy of swap data with both counterparties to a swap as well as amend parts 23, 43, 45, and 49, to provide enhanced and streamlined oversight over SDRs and data reporting generally.

First published in the Federal Register on May 19, 2019, the initial comment period was to end on July 29, before the Commission granted an extension to October 29 and finally to January 27, 2020.

Since opening the proposed rule change for comments, the Commission has received only nine comment letters and held three ex parte meetings, which included representatives of the CME Group, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., Global Financial Markets Association, the Intercontinental Exchange, the LCH, and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.

Initial industry feedback has been consistent among industry bodies and individual firms.

“The Futures Industry Association believes that the Commission should not consider imposing further verification requirements until it has finalized and implemented amendments to streamline data fields and leverage existing SDR validation processes,” wrote Walt Lukken, president and CEO of FIA.

Lukken also recommended that the Commission should take a principles-based approach if additional verification of swaps data is required as well as drop the proposed obligation to notify the Director of DMO if a reporting party cannot remediate an issue with a specific period.

The Coalition of Physical Energy Companies was also against imposing new obligations on non-reporting parties and wanted to limit the new burdens on those parties that report infrequently.

The industry body was wary of the proposed rule in which the SDRs would send “open swaps” reports to a non-registrant reporting party who is then obligated to verify the accuracy of the data within 96 hours.

COPE members are typically are non-reporting parties that do have significant staff resources to validate the data, wrote David Perlman, a partner at Bracewell, and counsel to COPE.

Instead, COPE suggested that “a reporting party that reports an average of 50 or less swaps per month not be required to engage in the verification of open swaps.”

Prudential Global Hedge Management also sought relief from the proposed rule change for those firms involved in inter-affiliate trades.

“From a policy perspective, inter-affiliate trades are not as critical to the goals of the swap data reporting rule for providing pricing and information transparency to the broader marketplace,” wrote Michael Long, president at Prudential Global Hedge Management. “The benefits of verifying inter-affiliate trades are outweighed by the burden to the end-user reporting counterparty.”

If the Commission felt the necessity of validating data regarding such trades, Long suggested that data validation happen semi-annually instead of monthly, and the Commission lengthen the response period to two business weeks rather than the proposed 96 hours.

Meanwhile, global financial advisory and technology provider Chatham Financial “believes that there are less burdensome ways for the Commission to improve the accuracy of swap data reporting while lowering the burden for all reporting counterparties, including non-swap dealers and end-users,” wrote Laura Grant, COO of Chatham Financial.

The firm recommended that much of the data validation takes place at the SDRs when the trades are first reported, such as making sure that the fields for parts 43 and 45 are populated correctly.

Chatham tested a few SDRs in June and found that some SDRs would accept reports where many of the fields mandated by Part 45 were left empty and did not receive a rejection notice.

“This means that swaps can be reported to and accepted by some SDRs without including a significant portion of Part 45 required data points,” wrote Grant.

Chatham further suggested that SDRs validate data regarding its type to prevent parties from entering text into a numeric field or only permitting the use of allowable values and rejecting the report if other values were in the field.

“If the Commission chooses to finalize the verification process outlined in proposed §49.11, the verification should be limited to open swaps reports as currently proposed,” she added. “The Commission should not expand the scope of the verification process to include all swap data messages.”

Artificial intelligence is finding a new home throughout UBS far beyond just developing quantitative trading strategies.

“Its applicability depends on the desired use, end objective, and problem it is trying to address,” Beatriz Martín Jiménez, investment bank COO and UK CEO at UBS, told Markets Media. “At UBS, we extensively use AI across the entire operating cycle.”

Advances in technologies, such as machine learning, have made it possible for the bank to reimagine services and process delivery in a holistic fashion, she added. “In the past, we may have focused on solving distinct problems for an immediate fix. While looking at the broader and more permanent solutions may be harder, it will set us up for long-term success.”

UBS has been working on proofs-of-concept and pilots within operations to process unstructured data.

Over the approximate past year, the bank has worked with an unnamed vendor to develop the pilot’s code that will help the firm classify roughly one million emails that the operations department receives daily across an estimated 5,000 mailboxes.

The pilot’s goal is to identify the emails that likely will require an escalated response from the operations team, such as potential trade breaks before they happen, based on the phrasing and vocabulary used by an email’s author.

Although UBS is working with an outside vendor, it is UBS employees who identify the patterns and decide how to proceed.

The bank is happy with the pilot’s performance and expects that the pilot’s small team likely will complete the project over the next few months, she added.

One reason her team decided to implement this proof-of-concept and pilot due to the Securities Financing Transactions Regulation’s upcoming deadline, which provided the team with a hard deadline.

The pilot also provided the bank with experience with reading, classifying, and prioritizing unstructured data that it can apply to other functions within its middle- and back office, such as the legal department.

A scenario might have machine learning compare a term sheet with a client’s latest email or call and give the bank the ability to check those terms against the parameters in the bank’s risk system, which then the legal department can conduct any necessary triage, according to Martín Jiménez.

Implementing such new processes into eventual production is not an attempt to lower headcount, but to redirect employee’s efforts towards more valuable tasks and to reduce their manual and repetitive tasks, she added. “It is about achieving more and better with the same workforce, engaging our staff on where their skill and expertise is far more impactful.”

Deutsche Börse is looking for mergers to grow in certain asset classes, particularly since the German exchange operator failed to acquire FXAll, the foreign exchange trading venue.

Theodor Weimer, chief executive of Deutsche Börse, said in the exchange’s third quarter results call today that its M&A strategy was unchanged as it wants to increase scale in certain asset classes.

“We constantly screen M&A opportunities and we are not getting tired of it,” added Weimer. “We will stick to the areas we have communicated with data as a high priority and also foreign exchange, although there are limited targets.”

The firm is also looking for potential deals in commodities, post-trade and fixed income. “We will stick to our financial discipline and will not do a transaction at any price,” he said.

The German exchange had been in discussions with Refinitiv about potentially purchasing FXAll before the London Stock Exchange Group acquired the data provider.

In contrast, Deutsche Börse last month completed the acquisition of Axioma, which provides software for enterprise risk management, portfolio construction, and regulatory reporting. Following the completion, Deutsche Börse combined Axioma with its index and analytics businesses to form a new company, Qontigo.

Do you want to know what the name of our newest Group member @qontigofinance is all about? ⬇️ https://t.co/4hu9PyGFjU

— Deutsche Börse Group (@DeutscheBoerse) September 24, 2019

Weimer said: “Qontigo has increased access to the buy side for the whole group and allows us to grow inorganically in analytics.”

He continued that Qontigo enables the group to address current trends in asset management including the growth of passive investing and smart beta; the need for technology infrastructure to achieve efficiency and scale; and the transition towards customization of investment solutions.

Weimer added that the London Stock Exchange Group’s acquisition of Refinitiv changes the chessboard for all the players in the exchange sector.

“LSEG will be busy with Refintiv for next couple of years and the CME is busy with NEX,” he added. “Competition in M&A will continue to be fierce and although we were not able to get FXAll done, there are other targets we can go after.”

However he does not expect large exchange groups to be acquired. “They are increasingly perceived as part of the national domestic DNA,” he added.

Gregor Pottmeyer, chief financial officer at Deutsche Börse, said on the call that the priority for using excess cash will be M&A, and if that is not possible, the group will consider share buybacks.

Results

Outlook confirmed – and we are still growing. Proud to announce our numbers for Q3/2019. More in our press release: https://t.co/fBoccaiyfV pic.twitter.com/TB7vjyCUqa

— Deutsche Börse Group (@DeutscheBoerse) October 28, 2019

Deutsche Börse generated net revenue of €2.2bn ($2.4bn) in the first nine months of 2019, a 7% increase from the same period last year. Pottmeyer said the group is confident of meeting its full-year targets and confirmed guidance of around 10% net profit growth for 2019.

He continued that the main drivers of growth were Eurex, the financial derivatives business, and EEX, the commodities segment.

“In addition to over-the-counter clearing, secular growth of net revenue in the Eurex segment was mainly a result of new products and pricing models, whilst in the EEX segment, the positive development of the secular net revenue growth reflected significant market share gains in Europe and the US,” Pottmeyer added.

Pottmeyer also highlighted 360T, Deutsche Börse’s foreign exchange business, which had its best ever month in September.

The integration of #GTX Electronic Communications Network in our #FX unit #360T created one of the largest and most diverse #OTC FX marketplaces. Find out how GTX compliments 360T´s existing product suite: https://t.co/7LqI2fm9Wq #Roadmap2020 pic.twitter.com/i9DGBbQjcT

— Deutsche Börse Group (@DeutscheBoerse) October 7, 2019

End-to-end electronic bookbuilding for bond syndication in mainland China is being launched next year by a joint venture between data provider IHS Markit and Hundsun Technologies.

The joint venture will allow syndicate banks to collaborate in real-time to publish new deals to the market, communicate terms and share other critical deal information in a standardized format that makes workflows more efficient. China is the world’s second largest bond market with an estimated 21.72 trillion yuan (more than $3 trillion) of bonds issued in the first half of this year according to IHS Markit.

We're excited to announce the formation of a joint venture with Hundsun to deliver a new, end-to-end electronic bookbuilding solution for bond syndication in mainland China.

Discover more: https://t.co/G31xGjXFcJ

— IHS Markit now S&P Global (@IHSMarkit) October 23, 2019

Allen Williams, managing director for global capital markets at IHS Markit, told Markets Media: “For example, the platform pulls information together from across the banks for reconciliation. A process that used to take between four and five hours can now be done in 30 minutes or less.”

IHS Markit acquired bookbuilding capabilities through its acquisition of Ipreo which completed in August year.

IssueBook allows a syndicate to set up and manage multiple live transactions and can handle multi-tranche deals across multiple currencies and asset classes. The product connects with the firm’s other new issuance products, including IssueNet, which allows multiple banks to reconcile their order books and Investor Access, which enables investors to view deal terms and participate directly in deals.

Williams added that the first phase of the joint venture is due to be launched in the third quarter of next year and will focus on the domestic market.

“Chinese banks will have to be comfortable moving to an automated platform,” he said.

Hundsun’s customers include Chinese banks as well as securities and futures companies, funds, trusts, insurers, exchanges and private equities.

In later phases the joint venture will include cross-border deals as the IHS Markit electronic bookbuilding products are used globally. For example, IssueNet has been used in Asia since 2013 and more 50 Asian banks use the service.

Peng Zhenggang, chairman of Hundsun, said in a statement: “China is accelerating the pace of opening its market. Through the introduction of IHS Markit’s international experience and advanced platforms, we are excited to develop a best-in-class electronic bookbuilding solution for the domestic market.”

The Chinese bond market became more attractive to overseas investors after it was added to the Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Index  in April, with its full weighting to be phased in over 20 months.

Investor Access

Herb Werth, managing director at IHS Markit, said in a blog in July that 42 banks and more than 300 investors have joined Investor Access since the platform launched just over two years.

“They are using the platform to analyse deals and place orders on over 90% of investment grade corporate bond issues in the euro and sterling markets,” he wrote.

He continued that Investor Access has to integrate with the technologies that each bank and investor uses.

“When you send a text message to a friend, are you concerned with the brand of phone they have, or the mobile network they are on? No” added Werth. “The idea that multiple services could communicate in a secure and standardised way is truly exciting.”

IHS Markit varies the core platform according to the client’s  workflow needs.

Werth said: “As a result, two things have happened: more participants are able to join this new platform in a way that is sympathetic to their existing workflows and technologies, and traditional methods can co-exist with the improved workflows, minimising disruption in the capital raising process.”