Stories about: Securities Industry Association

Hundreds of IT executives from Wall Street's largest financial firms converged on the US Securities Industry Association's (SIA) Technology Management Conference this week, looking for better ways to make the most out of what they already have.

In the name of straight-through processing (STP) of securities trades, financial services companies over the next two years will spend an estimated US$6 billion replacing their manual processes by plugging into virtual trade-matching utilities (VMU), installing middleware and integrating front- and back-end computer systems.

In the first meeting since changing the securities industry's focus in July from next-day settlement of trades to rolling out straight-through processing (STP) technology and rules, Wall Street executives yesterday told member firms that spending on technology to improve efficiency is needed now more than ever.

A proposed rule change by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) requiring the electronic capture of all stock orders before they leave the trading desk has Wall Street concerned that it will cost millions of dollars to implement and place too great an onus on the IT departments of brokerages that still record large stock orders on paper.

Trimming 48 hours off the time it takes to clear trades will cost the financial services industry $16 billion, according to the Securities Industry Association (SIA).

The financial services industry will spend US$8 billion during the next four years -- $2 billion to $4 billion more than it collectively spent on the Y2k problem -- in order to clear trades in a single day vs. the current three-day cycle, known as T+3, according to the Securities Industry Association (SIA).

Nobody likes e-mail spam, but a bill that would let Internet service providers and individuals sue senders of unsolicited bulk e-mail would simply be bad for retailers who use e-mail to reach customers, say opponents of the bill.

The new federal law giving digital signatures the same legal weight as written ones goes into effect on Sunday. But the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) already has guidelines in place for sending documents electronically, and the two sets of rules don't match.

Every weekday morning around 8:45, the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Inc. comes to life. Traders dart from broker booths to trading specialists, scribbling quotes on tiny pieces of pink paper. The specialists themselves are hard at work too, using specially designed keyboards to scroll through pages of data. This pace crescendos until the bell kicks off trading at 9:30 a.m., when it becomes downright frenetic. Scampers become sprints. Typing becomes flailing. For a few moments, the 3,300 people who live and die on the floor of the world's largest exchange are moving as quickly as humans possibly can.

While there was much buzz about e-commerce strategies at a securities industry event in New York this week, a potentially major operations problem is lurking -- the move from listing stock prices in fractions to decimals.

SAN FRANCISCO (06/21/2000) - SunGard Data Systems Inc., a major provider of software to the financial industry, is developing a version of its products that will run on forthcoming 64-bit software and hardware from Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp., the companies announced Wednesday.