The desk has been focused on equipping itself with advanced data analytics to enable traders to make more data-driven decisions related to pricing and risk management, and to utilise this data to make us more relevant to our clients based on client insights analysis.

With the increasing usage of eTrading and automation, the data-driven approach allows the desk to smartly allocate their resource/time, which leads to improved performance.

Is digitalisation affecting hiring processes on the trading floor and how are the skillsets of trading floor changing as the market evolves?

We are seeing the trend to have people who are data friendly and technology friendly joining the desk across all levels. The digitalisation is a learning journey for firms and individuals on the floor, it is not about hiring new skillsets to replace the old, but rather to have the right culture and support within the organisation to grow the existing teams with new skillsets and identify the areas where digitalisation could help us improve our performance.

We now have data scientists hired sitting on the trading floor next to traders, and they are working very closely with our technology team to build a data-driven trading desk.

Read more: The TRADE launches Diversity & Inclusion Survey for 2024

In your opinion, how different will trading floor look in five years’ time?

In five years’ time I would imagine an even more integrated team on the trading floor across functions – traders, sales, e-commerce, strategists, data scientists, technologists…

Technology and data would help enhance our performance, and human traders/sales would focus more on value-added actions with their SME knowledge to ensure a smooth execution for our clients – regardless of whether they come to us electronically or via voice.

I think we have observed different stages of the integration across different asset classes on our floor, from FX to Fixed Income based on the different stage they are on the digitalisation journey.

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The merger of its EU businesses is planned for 2025, according to the business, with client service at the forefront of the decision-making process.

The move is set to enhance the banks products and services within the highly competitive EU market.

Amidst this update, Mizuho has confirmed that it is in the process of closing its offices in Brussels, Dusseldorf, Milan, and Vienna – pending regulatory approval.

Mizuho’s banking hub in the EU is located in Amsterdam, whilst Mizuho Securities Europe – its EU Securities hub – is based in Frankfurt. Following the new structure, Amsterdam will be a key hub for the Universal Bank, with subsequent branches in Frankfurt, Madrid and Paris. 

Speaking in an announcement, Mizuho asserted that the business “will continue to deliver the exceptional levels of service that its clients have come to expect, with a fully integrated corporate and investment banking proposition for all its EU clients.

“Mizuho remains committed to the EU region and has full confidence in these structural changes which have clients’ needs at the core.”

Earlier this year, Mizuho entered a definitive agreement to acquire Greenhill & Co. in an all-cash transaction, with the move slated to help accelerate Mizuho’s investment banking growth strategy.

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Over recent months, historical Level 3 data provider BMLL has seen a surge in activity as it continues to expand its equities and ETF data coverage. Its products now include data from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX), Cboe Europe Indices, and more recently this month, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

Speaking to The TRADE last week, Paul Humphrey, chief executive of BMLL, explained that these recent moves had come in response to client demand for enhanced coverage.

“Our clients and market participants overall are demanding increasingly comprehensive, high quality data sets to understand market behaviour and we are delighted to provide them with the insights they need to make more informed trading decisions.”

Data from the added exchanges are available to BMLL users across the buy- and sell-side, as well as global exchange groups. Other inclusions earlier this year include: Cboe Japan, Japannext, and Singapore Exchange.

In other exchange news, the Johannesburg stock exchange launched a joint venture with big xyt in a bid to offer greater accessibility to data analytics to international trading venues and firms of all sizes.

The JV – big xyt ecosystems – is set to offer the Trade Explorer data platform, recently launched in South Africa, to financial centres globally.

Speaking at the time, Leila Fourie, chief executive of JSE Group, said: “All trading venues understand the need for a market data business adjacent to the core mission of providing high quality markets.”

There has also been notable movement in bonds offerings, which included updates from Overbond, Mizuho EMEA, and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).

In May, Overbond entered into an agreement to integrate European fixed-income transaction data from Deutsche Börse into its AI-aggregated data feeds and automated bond trading.

With this move, Overbond plans to “generate a robust European fixed-income trading data set,” aimed at plugging the gap in the fixed income markets in Europe that continue to be challenges for traders. The firm said its combination with Clearstream transaction data would create “the most robust European AI training data set available for the benefit of a better informed fixed income in Europe”.

The following month, Mizuho EMEA joined Neptune network as axe dealer for bonds in a move linked to a desire from the buy-side to access higher quality data from liquidity providers.

Byron Cooper-Fogarty, chief operating officer at Neptune, at the time highlighted that “this has been a client driven addition, as buy-side traders and portfolio managers continue to ask for high quality data from liquidity providers such as Mizuho.”

More recently, ICE made some updates to its corporate bond offering, relaunching its sweeps protocol – ICE RMA – in response to market demand.

Peter Borstelmann, president of ICE Bonds, highlighted that there was a notable demand for improvement in the space and the development of a product superior to that already in the market.

Speaking to The TRADE, he explained: “We heard from our partners that they wanted a strong competitor in this space and nobody had yet been able to step [into] that capacity.  We saw this as an opportunity to invest in something that we were the initial creators of and would be a nice complement to our existing ATS liquidity network […] we invested in both human capital and technology to bring an intuitive and easy product to market and the initial adoption and activity validates this investment.”

Also launched into the market in recent months were updates to FX offerings from several players. Earlier this month, August, Bloomberg announced that it had added a new suite of FX pricing quality tools in a bid to enhance RFQ pricing requests.

The tools – available to clients of its premier multi-bank FX trading platform (FXGO), through MISX, Bloomberg’s multi-asset reporting tool for electronic trading – allow price markers to more quickly identify where and why opportunities to price are being missed.

Tod Van Name, global head of foreign exchange electronic trading at Bloomberg highlighted the importance of this enhanced tool and the transparency and availability of real time information that it provides to their clients for trading operations.

“These new pricing quality analytics in MISX provide both buy- and sell-side market participants with unparalleled breadth and depth of analysis and output, that can help them make more informed trading decisions and achieve better outcomes.”

Guillaume Carreno, global head of electronic client connectivity at Crédit Agricole CIB, added: “The additional information, especially the “Best Alternative” data, has enabled us to identify areas where we can further improve the pricing quality for our clients. The productivity efficiency we gain with this new feature is an important added value.”

Similarly, Trading Technologies (TT) has been making a move to establish itself in FX, launching a new business line in June following its entry into the fixed income market for the first time in March with its acquisition of AxeTrading.

In August, TT acquired Abel Noser’s buy-side TCA subsidiary, building on its continued multi-asset data and analytics expansion.

“This acquisition enhances our appeal to the buy-side with an offering that spans multiple asset classes which we can fortify with the wealth of anonymised data harnessed through our platform,” said Trading Technologies chief executive officer Keith Todd.

Elsewhere, players have made enhancements aimed at assisting traders with their operational needs, seeking to optimise, secure, and streamline processes.

In June, futures industry technology provider FIA Tech enhanced its Trade Data Network (TDN) to support the operational resiliency demands of clearing firms utilising the platform. 

From now, users of TDN are able to securely replicate and store all trading activity at any exchange connected to the network, resulting in speedier recovery in the event of a systemic outage. 

Additionally, the following month, FlexTrade and TRAction announced a new integration aimed at alleviating the “operational burden” of transaction reporting on the buy-side trading desk.

Its system users can use this update in daily transaction reporting processes, by automatically reporting their data through the TRAction platform in the appropriate format. (Spark EMS users can also use TRAction for Emir, Mifir, ASIC, MAS and Canadian reporting).

At the time, the pair claimed that this direct integrated approach “removes formerly manual tasks, reducing errors and improving quality”.

More recently, MarketAxess announced plans to acquire multi-asset algorithmic trading provider Pragma, betting on this move as a sure way to enhance its clients’ workflows.

“Our acquisition of Pragma underscores MarketAxess’ commitment to innovating, integrating, and providing our clients with quantitative, AI-powered technology solutions powered by proprietary data designed to simplify and enhance their workflows,” said Chris Concannon, chief executive officer of MarketAxess. 

David Mechner, founder and chief executive of Pragma, added: “Pragma and MarketAxess share a common mission of using technology and automation to improve trader efficiency and generate superior trading outcomes for investors.”

These recent surge in activity, across various sectors and asset classes, makes clear how seriously firms are taking demands from the market. Providers are demonstrably taking note of the market’s call for better and more accessible data, acutely aware that falling behind the client demand curve now will be increasingly detrimental to business in the long run.

Whether it be through acquisitions to “plug gaps,” joint ventures to share expertise, or straightforward investment in technological updates, what is clear is that providers across the board know where priorities need to lie as the market undergoes significant change. 

Driven by mounting regulatory pressures, increased globalisation, and general uncertainty as regards future trading rules, the need for better data is clear. It’s do or die.

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The two leading US capital markets watchdogs have come down on almost a dozen organisations over recordkeeping failures with their combined penalties totalling nearly $550 million.

The SEC has charged 11 Wall Street firms $289 million for widespread recordkeeping failures, while in a parallel case, the CFTC has issued orders to four bank-affiliated swap dealers and/or futures commission merchants (FCMs), totalling $260 million.

The SEC handed out a range of penalties: $125 million to Wells Fargo, Wells Fargo Clearing Services, and Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network; $35 million to BNP Paribas Securities and SG Americas; $25 million to BMO Capital Markets and Mizuho Securities USA; $15 million to Houlihan Lokey Capital; $10 million to Moelis & Company and Wedbush Securities; and $9 million to SMBC Nikko Securities America.

All 11 firms had been found to have been using longstanding “off-channel” communications following an investigation by the SEC.

The SEC specifically highlighted electronic communications and the widespread and longstanding failures by firms and their employees to maintain and preserve these.

Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC’s division of enforcement underscored the lessons that must be learnt from the action, highlighting that the commission has now brought 30 enforcement actions and fined more than $1.5 billion to date.

“While some broker-dealers and investment advisers have heeded this message, self-reported violations, or improved internal policies and procedures, today’s actions remind us that many still have not. So here are three takeaways for those firms who haven’t yet done so: self-report, cooperate and remediate. If you adopt that playbook, you’ll have a better outcome than if you wait for us to come calling,” he advised.

All firms admitted wrongdoing, confirming the facts set out in the SEC orders and acknowledged their violations of the recordkeeping provisions of the federal securities laws. A statement from the SEC confirmed that improvements have already begun to be implemented in the firm’s respective compliance policies and procedures.

In addition to recordkeeping faults, the CFTC also highlighted supervision failures related to the widespread use of unapproved communication methods.

The regulator has landed BNP, Société Générale and Wells Fargo with $75 million penalties each, while the Bank of Montreal has been handed a lesser $35 million.

Additionally, the CFTC has also confirmed that the settlements also require an admission of wrongdoing from the banks.

Ian McGinley, director of enforcement at CFTC, said: “With today’s actions, the CFTC has now brought enforcement actions against 18 financial institutions, and imposed over $1 billion in penalties, for violations of the CFTC’s recordkeeping and supervision requirements involving the use of unapproved communication methods. 

“The Commission’s message could not be more clear—recordkeeping and supervision requirements are fundamental, and registrants that fail to comply with these core regulatory obligations do so at their own peril.”

The CFTC order found that over a period of years, the firms failed to stop employees – including at the senior level – from communicating using unapproved methods, including via WhatsApp.

In a statement, the CFTC explained that as the written communications were on the whole not maintained and preserved by the firms, they would not have been able to provide them to the CFTC promptly upon request.

Earlier today, Christy Goldsmith Romero, the CFTC Commissioner released a statement in which she strongly backed the ruling and emphasised a zero-tolerance approach: “[…] Wall Street institutions do not get to keep regulators in the dark while enjoying all of the benefits of being a regulated entity in U.S. financial markets.  Those choosing to participate in U.S. financial markets are on notice—The era of evasive communications practices is over.

“The CFTC will hold you accountable. It’s time for Wall Street to stop waiting for an enforcement action before it changes its practices.  Tone at the top must change on Wall Street.  Change can only happen if the banks’ C-suite establishes a culture of compliance over evasion.”

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Following its addition, the bank will distribute axes for investment grade and high yield corporate credit.

Guy Cornelius, head of institutional sales at Mizuho EMEA highlighted that the move will work to make the market more efficient for all participants “by sharing data and enhancing liquidity in global markets.”

Neptune Networks disseminates real-time axe data, delivering axes from 32 dealers in global fixed income to more than 90 buy-side firms (managing $60 trillion in global assets under management) via FIX.

Through its offering, Neptune’s data can be delivered via a range of workflows, including: direct to order management systems, execution management systems or via API.

Byron Cooper-Fogarty, chief operating officer at Neptune, said: “We are delighted to have Mizuho join Neptune as the latest dealer to provide axes and inventory data to our buy-side community. This has been a client driven addition, as buy-side traders and portfolio managers continue to ask for high quality data from liquidity providers such as Mizuho.”

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The discussion delved into the key impacts of automation within fixed income, in particular, how it could shape the future role of traders themselves.

Among the panellists was Adrian Dacruz, vice president, strategic market development capital markets at Deutsche Börse who touched on the positive correlation between automated solutions and individuals being freed up to focus on higher value tasks, such as strategy and building client relationships – “working on managing the execution process rather than partaking in it”.

He added that, “Automation allows us to reduce the biases that exist in the investment sphere because of us as humans. Day to day behaviours, like herd behaviour, bias, and over confidence is reduced with an automated strategy. Humans act on emotion, but a system acts on what it’s told to do, which is a key factor.”

Andrew Kovacs, director of product management EMEA at Charles River Development agreed, suggesting that, “There is a need for technical expertise to evaluate the resulting trades that have been processed through this automation process”.

If everything is done manually, said Kovacs, “You have a very deep understanding of every trade you’ve actually executed as opposed to when you pass things through a machine. Looking for ways to improve or optimise the process on the trading desk requires new skills to make sure the quality of the trades remain high.”

He went on to say: “The skills that traders have today may not lend themselves particularly well to this exercise, so trade desks may have to bring in talent to complement the process.”

Other speakers included Lu Fu, managing director, head of eSales and digital transformation EMEA at Mizuho and James Bunting, global head of partnerships at Finsemble.

Interoperability is essential

The panel established that automation is a multi-faceted, dynamic problem to solve. A large portion of the discussion centred around interoperability, which the speakers agreed is vital to the future of the space.

Bunting said ensuring applications and services were working together cohesively was essential “even though they’ve never been designed to.”

For Fu, one of the most important considerations from a trading desk perspective was to ensure that users have a say in how they want their workspace to look and operate in order to increase efficiency.

“We need to upgrade the trading desk skill set in a way people feel comfortable in knowing how the systems work together now […] the majority of the time end-users struggle to see how systems interact. It’s a long journey and as Andrew pointed out a lot of time is [spent] training on the desk, and hiring more diverse types of talent on the desk to help with this,” Fu said.

Panellists also discussed what credit trade workflow could look like in the next two years, with Kovacs highlighting how the line between traders and PM roles is becoming increasingly blurred as the traders’ realm opens up.

“Years ago, traders had control over all the data related to trading activity, but now PMs have insight into a lot of information such as liquidity and pricing and they might use that to help inform their security selection process,” he noted. “Now more than ever, PMs are helping make decisions about which trades to automate” – a situation which he stated will only continue to be more prevalent as automation increases.

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Credit Suisse hired Marcus Friberg as its latest credit trader, based in London. He joins Credit Suisse from ING, where he spent almost five years as a corporate bond trader. Previously in his career, Friberg spent just under three years working with Citi in emerging markets debt origination. 

Agency broker BTIG promoted Paras Shah to the role of head of EMEA credit trading. Shah joined BTIG in June this year as managing director, credit, as part of an expansion of BTIG’s fixed income credit team. Shah previously served at Citi for just over three years as head of EMEA high yield trading. Earlier in his career, he served at HSBC for seven years as a director in both high yield and sterling credit trading.

Equity trader with a decade of experience, George Wales, left Winterflood Securities to join investment bank Numis. Wales joined Numis as an equity sales trader after spending the last two years at Winterflood. Prior to joining Winterflood in 2020, Wales spent six years at RBC Asset Management as an equity trader as well as previously serving in roles across Scottish Widows Investment Partnership, CVC Cordatus, and Northern Trust Corporation.

Mizuho’s London-based head of USD rates trading, Kevin Broughton, departed the firm for Wells Fargo. Broughton joined Wells Fargo as a macro rates trader after most recently spending the last year at Mizuho. Prior to joining Mizuho in 2021, Broughton served as a senior consultant at Accenture and in rates trading roles across RBC Capital Markets, Scotiabank, TD, and Morgan Stanley. Previously in his career, he also spent a year as a broker at ICAP.

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During September and October, several traders have joined the fixed income trading business at Mizuho, including senior corporate credit trader at HSBC, Ed Brunni, Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s former director of high yield credit trading, Steve Munday, and co-head of asset-backed security (ABS) at Barclays, Chris Nias.

Brunni will be trading high yield, cross-over and hybrid corporate securities and Munday joins the high-yield trading team, while Nias joins the securitised product trading team covering secondary trading in ABS and collateralised loan obligation (CLO) products. All three will report to Claus Jorgensen, head of credit trading for EMEA at Mizuho International.

The sovereigns, supranationals and agencies (SSA) trading team at Mizuho has also been expanded with the hire of Jonny Vivas. He has previously worked on the rates sales desk at Mizuho, but spent the last 11 months working on the central bank sales desk at Deutsche Bank. Vivas will report to Greg Hickling, head of cash rates trading at Mizuho.

Credit Agricole’s head of credit flow sales for France, Belgium and Luxemborg, Tristan Lagariggue, will also become part of the investment grades sales team at Mizuho, alongside Russell Feldman and Jack Czarnota, who previously worked at NatWest Markets and Jefferies respectively. Lagariggue, Feldman and Czarnota will be part of the sales effort headed up by Roy Martins, head of EMEA institutional sales and client relationship management at Mizuho International.

The string of hires follows Mizuho’s appointment of Asif Godall, formerly co-chief investment officer at Cairn Capital and head of traded credit within HSBC’s global banking and markets business, in March this year. Godall was appointed EMEA head of global markets at Mizuho, with a focus on fixed income sales and trading.

“These recent appointments demonstrate our commitment to building and strengthening our fixed income business and realigning our EMEA Global Markets business to focus on group collaboration. We are delighted that all individuals have chosen to join our efforts at

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Bob Wright has been appointed head of execution sales and trading at Mizuho Americas, reporting to head of the equity division for the region, Darlene Pasquill.

“Bob has the proven ability to successfully orchestrate complex cash equity client trades and he is known for building strong trading teams,” Pasquill commented. “Additionally, his prior expertise as the lead trader for IPO’s and secondary risk blocks will be of immediate benefit to our equity platform.”

Wright joins Mizuho after more than 20 years with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he worked his way up to hold various senior trading positions. Most recently, he was head of US cash trading at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, having started his career at Merrill Lynch in the 1990s.  

“The Equity cash trading business is an important component to our corporate and investment banking offering and supports our strategic plan to grow our Equity capital markets business,” added president and chief executive officer of Mizuho Securities USA, Jerry Rizzieri.

Wright is the latest senior appointment at the Mizuho banking group this summer, after the hire of former Citi executive, Slava Slavinsky, to head up its investment banking business for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Slavinsky was formerly head of corporate and investment banking in Russia at Citi, before leaving in 2013 to become chief financial officer at oil company Rosneft.

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Slava Slavinsky will take on the senior position at Mizuho as of 12 August, acting in the capacity of a senior director and reporting to both Suneel Bakhshi, president of CEO of Mizuho International and Yasuto Hamanishi, head of global investment banking for the institution.

Mizuho said that in the role, Slavinsky will work closely with colleagues and senior management at Mizuho International and Mizuho Bank to lead its C-suite engagement across the EMEA region.

Slavinsky has previously spent nine years at Citi, most recently as head of corporate and investment banking in Russia before leaving in 2013 to become chief financial officer at oil company Rosneft. He has also previously worked at Deutsche Bank, Salomon Brothers and Societe Generale.

“Slava’s combination of international corporate expertise and investment banking experience, in addition to his franchise-building skills acquired over many years, perfectly positions him to contribute to Mizuho’s continued growth and successful development of our international activities,” Bakhshi commented on the appointment.

Throughout his career, Slavinsky’s total deal volume stands at almost $200 billion with projects including corporate development, integration initiatives, change management, mergers and acquisitions, and equity and bond issuances.

“I trust that [Slavinsky’s] solid track record in the banking business and the close relationships he has built over the years with major EMEA clients would work to further enhance our clients’ trust in Mizuho. We are confident that he will contribute to the expansion of our banking business not only in EMEA but on a global basis,” Hamanishi concluded.

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