Brian Bollen's Blog

Echoes of my mind

Mint – Blain’s Morning Porridge  September

I don’t hear a word they’re saying, only the echoes of my mind…

BNY Mellon president to retire

BNY Mellon announced today that its president, Karen B Peetz, has decided to retire from the company at the end of the year. 

SGSS names new global head of sub-custody network management

Societe Generale Securities Services (SGSS) has appointed Massimiliano Notarianni as global head of sub-custody network management. Previously head of ptovider monitoring and change, he reports to Didier Rolland, global head of securities banking operations, and replaces Mathilde Guérin, who has been appointed deputy head of product engineering.

Massimiliano Notarianni will be responsible for developing and managing both SGSS and the Corporate & Investment Bank’s sub-custody relationships globally. He will also be tasked with delivering high quality solutions to respond to client requirements, specifically in terms of asset protection and market information and intelligence. 

In her new role, Guérin will be responsible for developing and enhancing SGSS’ securities service offering, from design to implementation, in collaboration with operational business lines and support functions, reporting to Etienne Deniau, head of product engineering. 


Both appointments are based in Paris and effective immediately.

The future is digital

As reported last week, private equity fund administrator Ipes is working to raise the profile of ID Register, its new online platform which has been designed to make the Know Your Client (KYC) process quicker, easier and more cost-effective.

KELER hands SGSS mandate

Societe Generale Securities Services (SGSS) has been mandated by KELER, the Hungarian central securities depository, to facilitate connection to the Target-2-Securities (T2S) platform  providing access to liquidity management and collateral transformation solutions for T2S, the European platform for securities settlement.

BNP Paribas Securities Services builds Talend relationship

BNP Paribas Securities Services reports today that, having managed the operational aspects of specialist software provider Talend’s initial public offering (IPO) on the NASDAQ Global Market in July 2016, it now provides the company with shareholder services.

Volante Technologies and Finexus partner

Volante Technologies, a provider of software for the integration, processing and orchestration of financial messages and payments, says it has been chosen by Finexus to provide key message transformations in complex multicurrency Real-time Gross Settlement (RTGS) System implementations. Finexus is a Malaysian-HQ and Asia Pacific region-based digital payment solutions and services provider. 

Finexus and Volante’s first project in the region is a significant multi-year implementation at a central bank, is part of a larger, global internationalisation and modernisation process, to build and maintain Real-time Gross Settlement (RTGS) and Scripless Securities Settlement Systems in the Asia-Pacific region.

Ordinary retail prices border on the criminal

I priced a small coat rack in Homebase in Milton Keynes yesterday. They had one at £20 and another at £25. Just bought one very similar in B&M for £6.99. No More Nails, about £8 in Homebase (IIRC) was £3.99 in B&M.

Killing some time in Tesco, I spotted an HP343 cartridge, the kind I use in my printer in Wengen, for £26. That is downright outrageous, bordering on the criminal...and let's now speak of Waitrose charging £8.99 for a bottle of red wine that B&M sells for £4.99...

MTN, RIP

I've just read an obituary in the Financial Times of Michael Thompson-Noel, for whom I used to work occasionally on a casual basis as one of the regular writers who helped with the Weekend FT's sports coverage in the mid-80s (I shared football writing duties with Philip Coggan, son of a former Archbishop of Canterbury).

I read the obituary with some interest. I greatly enjoyed working with him, up to a point as if he felt you had let him down, he never forgot. 

My last commission for him was to write a round-up of the just-finished Scottish football season. After it didn't appear on the expected weekend, I rang to ask why. It just seemed a bit of a round-up, he replied. I'm still baffled...

 

Too blind to see

Mint – Blain’s Morning Porridge 

Something’s happening and it’s happening right now, you’re too blind to see…

SIX Securities Services to partner with Digital

SIX Securities Services, the post-trade infrastructure operator for the Swiss financial sector, and Digital Asset Holdings, a developer of distributed ledger technology for the financial services industry, say they plan to develop a proof of concept that will demonstrate the commercial viability of distributed ledger technology across the Swiss financial market, with an initial prototype for securities lifecycle processing.

ELITE, Bank Hapoalim, sign MoU

The London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) reports that ELITE, its international programme for ambitious high growth businesses, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Bank Hapoalim, Israel’s leading financial services group. ELITE and Bank Hapoalim will collaborate to support the development of Israeli high growth businesses and promote ELITE in Israel. 

Spectre at the ESMA consultation feast

As the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) approaches the closing of its consultation on asset segregation and custody services tomorrow, Ross Whitehill, head of strategic regulatory office for EMEA, BNY Mellon Markets, has offered up the following comments.

Bedell Trust in MBO

Bedell Trust, a corporate, fund and fiduciary administration company, has been the subject of a management buyout sponsored by Inflexion Private Equity.

Then the flood came upon the earth

Monsoon hits London

Mint – Blain’s Morning Porridge 

Then the flood came upon the earth for forty days, and the water increased and lifted up the ark...

Don't stand in the doorway

Mint – Blain’s Morning Porridge

Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall. For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled..

If the Porridge was the “Pyongyang Times”:

Oh no, not again...

Mint – Blain’s Morning Porridge 

Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was: Oh no, not again...

I find your lack of faith disturbing..

Mint – Blain’s Morning Porridge 

China posts stronger numbers, but the US Federal Reserve looks split on an imminent rate hike – December looks increasingly likely - so it’s still a guessing game what happens next. Bonds are finding a renewed bid – not on folk buying them because they look fundamental value on the dip, but purely because the Bank of England is about to start buying every single sterling bond that ever there was, and the European Central Bank has been in buying more and more European stuff..

Macquarie fifth and final close

Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets (MIRA) has reported the first and final close of its latest infrastructure fund – Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund 5 (MEIF5).

Overheard in Waitrose

Mint – Blain’s Morning Porridge 

Overheard in Waitrose...But mummy, mummy, mummy, you know that isn't the prosciutto I like!