PostTrade 360° Copenhagen

Gabriel Vimberg, Investor Services, SEB

As much as us operations folks love our details, let’s see Alan Cameron kick off the conference with some proper big-picture reflections:

• Always remember that necessity is the mother of invention

• It’s time to put asset servicing centre stage

• Settlements – you need to get a sense of direction

Alan Cameron, Head of Client Line Advisory, BNP Paribas Securities Services

Anthony Attia, Global Head of Primary Markets & Post Trade, Euronext

Central clearing was meant to make the global financial system more robust after 2008, and it seems to have done its job in the covid-19 and Ukraine invasion market crises. New, higher, margin requirements under “UMR” could contribute as well. But as an inflation shock now rattles the markets, what more can we see when we zoom in on the recent activity at the clearinghouses and their clients?

Moderator: Anders Tvilde, Manager, Sector & Infrastructure, Nordea

Panellists:

Joanne Donaghey, Director of Sales and Relationship Management, LCH

Brendon Bambury, Head Sales and Relationship Management UK, Nordics and Benelux, SIX

Tim Beckwith, Head of Commercial Services & Business Development, EuroCCP

The way investors see sustainable practices at corporations has matured fast. Today, most think positively of them as they are seen as good risk management – and worth paying extra for when buying shares or bonds. So what sustainability initiatives is it that investors put a premium on, and how can issuing corporations translate their ESG efforts into metrics that feed into the spreadsheets and make a difference on the valuation?

Moderator:  Sylvester Andersen, Associate Vice President, European Markets, Nasdaq

Panellists:

Lars Eibeholm, Head of Sustainable Banking, SEB Denmark

Thorsten Meyer Larsen, CFA, Head of ESG, BankInvest

As the pressure on financial institutions to innovate has intensified, operations teams are being tapped to add value in new ways. Back-office teams who successfully help their organization master data transformation can materially differentiate their firms and create a competitive advantage by better enabling – and even unifying – teams across the enterprise, inclusive of those in the front office.Explore how leading firms are revolutionizing back- and middle-office functions, how they’ve addressed common challenges, and topics to contemplate as you navigate your own data revolution.

Paula Avraamides, Client Executive, Nordics, BNY Mellon 

Duncan Cooper, Head of OMNI Digital Services, EMEA and APAC, BNY Mellon

Ejvind Hald, Senior Sales Engineer, Snowflake

Being the outstanding alternative-assets leader of Northern Europe, Denmark is well positioned as investors seek diversification and alpha beyond the liquid public markets. And now, increasingly, retail investors are coming to the table, too – raising new and complex operational questions for alternative asset managers as well as their distributors and institutional investors.

Brian McMahon, Global Head of Alternatives Business Development, BNY Mellon

Owning a Rembrandt goes outside the budget for most of us but what if we could invest in a tiny fraction of one? Liechtenstein-based company Artex has set out to make it possible, even for retail investors starting with 100 dollars – by launching a fully regulated multilateral trading facility for securitised fractions of art masterpieces.The post-trade infrastructure is traditional, with players including SIX, Euroclear’s ICSD and BNY Mellon, so from a securities-operations viewpoint this may fit smoothly into traditional processes. But could it exemplify a broader trend where alternative assets are becoming more liquid through new regulation and modern technology – unleashing value by making them tradable? What operational implications could such a trend bring for market participants and their service providers over time?

Yassir Benjelloun-Touimi ,Co-Founder and CEO, ARTEX

Hear the story of how Deutsche Bank went through transformation to build and fully leverage the value of a company-wide and holistic data operating model. Learn how to give your data teams the ability to operate autonomously whilst pulling towards a united vision, and develop a culture of continuous learning based around outcomes and key results.

Chris Daniels, Chief Data Officer, Corporate Bank, Deutsche Bank

Cyberattacks is an ever-present threat to investment operations – as recently highlighted by the Russia-Ukraine conflict. This session will discuss your best course of action before your business gets a visit by a cybercriminal or suffer from collateral damage.

Moderator: Göran Fors, Deputy Head of Investor Services, SEB

Susanne Öhrn, Information Security & Cyber Risk Manager, SEB

Ronny Sinjari, Risk Manager, SEB

Regulatory data reported under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation could be used as early-warning indicators by supervisory authorities, EU market authority ESMA suggests. Having studied the $10bn bankruptcy of US billionaire Bill Hwang’s hedge-fund-style family office Archegos last year, ESMA finds that the build-up of the firm’s EEA exposure and risk concentration levels were evident in its regulatory reports. This study underlines the importance of regulatory reporting for financial stability analysis.

Martin Haferkorn, Risk Analysis Officer, ESMA

Join Janine Hofer-Wittwer, who is responsible for developing ESG data services at SIX, to learn more about the recent developments in the ESG investment and data landscape. What are the challenges that financial institutions are facing with regards to ESG data and the growing demands from regulators and how can you make sustainability data management a natural component of business to support investor decision-making and disclosures?

Janine Hofer-Wittwer, CFA, Senior Product Manager, Financial Information, SIX

The CSDR settlement discipline regime, with its fines when trade settlements fail, got off to a rocky start if international reports are to believe. Operational issues linger, fines pile up, and settlement rates stay far from clear improvements. So how are things going for the banks in Denmark and the Nordic region?

Moderator: Sachin Mohindra, Executive Director, Goldman Sachs

Panellists:

Marianne Sørensen, Head of Financial Market Infrastructure, Danske Bank

Lene Holm Mouritzen, Senior Specialist Infrastructure & Business Innovations, Nykredit Wealth Management

Kristoffer Sønderlev, Head of Custody & Settlement Products, Euronext Securities Copenhagen

Daniel Carpenter, CEO, Meritsoft

Distributed ledger technology (often blockchain) has not only generated crypto as a new asset class to stuff in our safes. It could also bring improvements in several of the areas that we focus on as financial services professionals:
- the processes,
- the balance sheets,
- settlement counterparty and credit risk, and
- liquidity and cash management.
Highlighting some industry examples, this block of sessions will discuss some of the changes we may be up for. First, however, an overview to get us all up to speed on the topic.

Moderator: Olaf Ransome, Founder, 3C Advisory LLC

16:30 SESSION 1: Issuance

Is there upside in using DLT rather than the existing traditional-finance (“TradFi”) process – for example when it comes to syndication, the use of a CSD, or the delivery-versus-payment settlement? What can tokenisation offer that securitisation cannot? And will there be new forms of assets that will ignite trading?

Naveed Nasar, Co-Founder, agora digital capital markets

16:45 SESSION 2: Trading
Exchange-based trading in crypto markets is all based on pre-funding. Is this a better model than in TradFi? DLT-driven news in the area also includes “automated market-making apps” (AMMs), and crypto derivatives markets with automatic risk adjustments and new (pre-funded) principles around the margin requirements. Good things for TradFi players?

Usman Ahmad, CEO, Zodia Markets by Standard Chartered and OSL

17:00 SESSION 3: Settlement and custody

For settlement and custody, what changes might we see in the traditional roles of CSDs and ICSDs? This is just one of the questions that DLT raises in the settlement and custody area. The pre-funded approach at crypto exchanges and new digital ones like SDX is one thing that looks at odds with traditional ways … so which ancillary activities such as financing will need to be available to support this new model? And how will the role of the custodians change, for example from being involved post trade to pre-trade?

Amar Amlani, Executive Director, Digital Assets, Goldman Sachs

17:15 SESSION 4: Money … or rather the means of payment

We can see that in the digital asset space there are new exchanges, or execution venues, and there are new custody solutions. Our settlement processes also need a means of payment. The line to date is that if the assets are on-chain then we need that means of payment to be on-chain. How to solve for this? Does it require governments or central banks to lead with a CBDC or are private stablecoins sufficient? What are the requirements for something to be a widely acceptable means of payment? How much of an enabler would it be for wholesale markets to have a CBDC or its private sector equivalent?

Jonas Gross, Head of Digital Assets and Currencies, etonec

Gabriel Vimberg, Investor Services, SEB

Helle Søby Thygesen, Secretary General, Capital Market Denmark, Finance Denmark

Bilateral and triparty collateral management, corporate actions, margin calls, taxation processes, and cut-off times … The list seems endless when it comes to things that the European Central Bank and its friends in the Eurosystem seek to harmonise through its “Single Collateral Management Rulebook for Europe”, popularly known as SCoRE. So how is it being received in Denmark and what changes will it bring?

Pernille Vestergaard Boesen, Senior Product Owner, Euronext Securities Copenhagen

Dorthe Nielsen, Senior Product Owner, Euronext Securities Copenhagen

On the general level, most financial firms are well aware that they must focus on the expert activities where they add their unique contribution – and can sustain a good margin – while they put automation and outsourcing to work on all sub-processes that could be considered commoditised. And fortunately, through the logic of APIs and “the cloud”, technology has made these hybrid setups way easier to implement over the last years.In reality, however, any tweak to the operating model must still be guided by thorough understanding of the precise benefits we seek for ourselves and our clients, and preceded by rigorous ground work in terms of the interoperability of the data. This session discusses how we can identify and pave the way to a future-proof service model that will help the firm reduce costs, maintain control, and ensure regulatory compliance.

Anna Tufvasson, Product Manager, Investment Operations, SimCorp

A combined score across price, quality and flexibility is one of the tools that Michael Bernth Nielsen, director and COO at Denmark’s Capital Four Management, puts to use when selecting services from external providers. Then, the monitoring of the delivery must be structured to support the insight into what ought to be insourced or further outsourced.

Meet Michael for a holistic discussion on how to hit the sweet spots in the service supplier relations. Staying aware of the hidden costs is important. Going cheap with a provider can get expensive over time if you need to make up for lackluster service.

Moderator: Mouna Capitanio, Director, Operations & Accounting Business Services, SimCorp EMEA

Michael Bernth Nielsen, COO, Capital Four Management

Denmark has just scrapped the requirement for a power-of-attorney document from the beneficial owner when a professional nominee, such as a custodian, votes for shares that are registered in the nominee’s name. This comes as good news for many foreign investors and their representatives, who have in many cases even stayed away from voting due to the administrative burden and the high risk of disqualification on formal grounds. Let’s dig into the details of the simplified process, and understand what requirements must still be fulfilled.

Flemming Merring, Senior Product Manager, Euronext Securities Copenhagen

US equities are planned for day-after-trade settlement (T+1) starting in the first half of 2024. In Europe’s more complex landscape, it is expected to come later, but there is little doubt where the winds are blowing. Let’s take a look at the implications for Nordic actors.

Moderator:  Vinod Jain, Senior Analyst, Capital Markets, Aite-Novarica Group

Panellists: 

Frederik Stokholm, Senior Product Manager, Euronext Securities Copenhagen

Andrew Douglas, Managing Director & Head of Government Relations for EMEA & APAC, DTCC

Jørn Strunge, Head of Financial Infrastructure, Wealth Markets Operation, Nykredit

Gabriel Vimberg, Investor Services, SEB