The three firms join a growing list within Sustainable Trading’s global membership network of investment managers, banks, brokers, exchanges, trading platforms and service providers who share the goal of improving the sustainability of global markets.

Members of the network are now making progress with the implementation of the Sustainable Trading Best Practices, Sustainable Trading confirmed, through which the associated measurement framework will be utilised by members to track their progress and benchmark themselves against their peers.

Watch now: Sustainable Trading’s Duncan Higgins on integrating ESG into trading

The addition of Exegy, ING and Optiver follows the recent appointment of Eleni Coldrey of Euqinix, Asha Patel of Instinet and Ebrahim Patel of RMB, to Sustainable Trading’s board.

“We are delighted to welcome Exegy, ING, and Optiver to our membership network. Their extensive experience of global markets, and common commitment to driving a more sustainable future for the financial industry, will bring invaluable insights to Sustainable Trading,” said Duncan Higgins, founder and chief executive at Sustainable Trading. 

“Their participation further strengthens our collective efforts to drive positive industry change and greater sustainability in the global markets trading industry.”

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During his 20-year tenure, Hamilton held various senior roles within the firm’s sales organisation, focused on rates, currencies and emerging markets, repo, futures and options, and commodities. Jury has more than 25 years of trading experience, including having previously served as co-head of JP Morgan’s currencies and emerging markets business. Her key focus includes the electronification of the firm’s trading capabilities and the development of the digital agenda within sales.

The London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) moved to expand its business development division under Richard Worrell with the appointment of a former Citi individual. Reesha Radia is set to join the exchange in April as a senior manager in business development and sales. She joins after most recently spending almost five years at Citi in execution sales-focused roles, most recently as assistant vice president. Prior to joining Citi, she undertook several summer and spring analyst internships at Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan.

ING named Cathryn Meddemmen managing director, global head of electronic fixed income sales and digitisation. Meddemmen was promoted to the role after most recently serving as ING’s global head of electronic fixed income sales for two and a half years. Before joining ING, she spent seven years at Crédit Agricole as director of fixed income e-sales. Elsewhere in her career, Maddemmen held senior positions at Bloomberg and Citi.

Bloomberg appointed Josh Dresner as a new fixed income specialist. Dresner was promoted to the role after initially joining Bloomberg as a financial products analyst in September last year.

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According to 360T, this is the first time that two banks have been able to trade FX Swaps via API and match at the market midpoint.

In addition, 360T SUN is the only platform that currently offers a continuous streaming mid-price for FX Swap instruments.

“Establishing a marketplace that facilitates risk offset at the mid—market level signifies the next phase in the advancement of FX swaps trading,” said Shuo Wu, global head of forward e-trading at Deutsche Bank.

“This development finally delivers for the industry opportunities that have long been present in smaller markets, and empowers us to better cater to the rising client demand for access to these products.”

360T’s chief growth officer, Simon Jones, stated that the firm is confident that the development will mark a fundamental change in how banks trade FX swaps, opening the door to auto-hedging, aggregation and algorithmic execution. “360T SUN will ultimately allow our bank partners to better service their clients and enhance their own trading capabilities while unlocking further growth in the FX Swaps market,” said Jones.

Elsewhere, Simon Bevan, head of eFX trading at ING, added that trading FX swaps via API and executing at mid can deliver significant benefits: “The ability to auto price FX Swaps offers more efficient execution for our clients while enabling us to hedge our own risk better, and we’re delighted to now be deploying this technology,” he said.

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Traders operating in the European trading period currently benefit from an overlap with the Asia markets at the start of the day and an overlap with the US markets towards the end of the day meaning they can interact with interest from both regions.

However, a move to T+1 – as proposed by regulators in the US – could make cross-currency transactions more difficult because there is less time to interact with US counterparties – in particular for those asset managers who will have to wait until the end of the trading day to do their foreign exchange hedging making it too late to then trade in Europe.

As the markets are currently set up, the trade could then not be done the next day due to the cut off time for the FX transaction which is still on T+2 for US based equity that needs EUR or GBP funding.

“Moving to T+1 may move flows. The beauty of being in this part of the world is you can trade with lots of other regions etc Asia and US,” said Stephane Malrait, ING’s global head of market structure and innovation for financial markets, at FIX EMEA 2023.

“Moving to T+1 might see switch to having a US dedicated desk. We might move away from European time zone so we need to be careful.”

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted to shorten the settlement cycle to one business day, with the implementation date set for 28 May 2024, in February, and European and UK regulators have also been toying with the idea of potentially mirroring the move.

While there’s no official implementation date in Europe or the UK just yet, the UK government established an industry taskforce in December designed to examine the case for a transition to T+1 settlement, with initial findings to be published by December later this year.

One of the many reasons the US shift to T+1 is so significant is that it’s the first time the country has taken the lead among major markets on a reduced settlement timeframe. Therefore, the rest of the world now faces the challenge of adapting when their own respective markets are not on that cycle.

In Europe and Asia-Pacific, where firms will have to face the challenges of managing foreign exchange and securities lending, a recent survey from the ValueExchange showed that over half of participants are yet to define how they will manage critical areas post-transition. 

Participants have been quick to voice concerns over the move and the implications it might have for other asset classes and aspects of the market that will likely have to recalibrate along with settlement. Also noted at FIX EMEA 2023 was the potential impact on the repo markets which could now need to operate in real time and could now require the supply of lending instruments to be more liquid if the move to T+1 takes place.

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However, peer-to-peer cannot be used to fix the problem alone, with several panellists noting the importance of relationships and even voice trading during the volatility seen within the last few years.

The fragmentation of liquidity is a key market structure theme that has been identified at TradeTech FX, with the range of liquidity channels available in the market now broader than ever.

“The primary markets were the place where the bigger banks would source liquidity,” said Simon Bevan, global head of eFX trading at ING. “But primary markets do not always have the best liquidity or price, market impact is guaranteed and you can show in bigger size elsewhere.”

Among the growing options to grip the FX market are peer-to-peer pools, that allow buy and sell-side institutions to provide liquidity to one another directly. The topic has been brought to the stage at TradeTech FX for several years now and alongside those that sing its praises there remain participants that express concern over the pools’ reliability – and not knowing who is operating within them.

“If you’re more active you need liquidity, and all-to-all can’t guarantee that,” added Bevan. “Liquidity providers guarantee it but it might not be the best price.”

All panellists speaking at the 2022 event noted peer-to-peer was an essential tool as part of a wider toolkit. Founder and chief executive of peer-to-peer pool FX HedgePool, Jay Moore, said that unlike bilateral markets, peer-to-peer could reduce fragmentation by preventing a firm’s flow from being split up by broker, among other benefits.

The potential for an uptake in peer-to-peer trading begs the question: what could the future role of FX counterparties look like if it were to reach critical mass. The process of electronification has significantly reduced desk size globally, particularly in the spot markets; however, ongoing market volatility has sparked a resurgence in the importance of personal relationships and even, in some cases, voice trading.

In times of volatility, panellists noted peer-to-peer could be used for passive flow to free up the time and attention of traders.

“Constant feedback is needed on what’s driving pricing during market volatility,” said BlackRock’s head of FX trading, David Turner.

“It’s important to get trader input on the macro side and strategy. You need to keep all avenues open. It’s about having all of the tools in the toolkit,” concluded Turner.

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Adam Toms, European CEO, OpenFin

OpenFin, an operating system for enterprise productivity across the financial system, has won a new strategic investment from ING Ventures, the venture capital arm of ING. The TRADE has learned that the investment amount is around $10 million.  

“Having yet another big, strategic investor like ING on board really drives home that what we are building – with and for the world’s largest banks – are necessary tools for today’s trader desktops,” said Adam Toms, European CEO of OpenFin, speaking to The TRADE.  

The announcement follows a period of accelerated growth since last year’s launch of OpenFin Workspace, a new visual interface of OpenFin OS which includes components for complex windowing, advanced search, actionable notifications and application discovery. Built on Google’s Chromium engine, OpenFin OS simplifies app distribution, unifies the digital workspace and enables improved communication and workflow between apps. 

“With the launch of Workspace last year, we enable users across banks and asset managers to consolidate and automate their workflows across desktops and applications, work smarter, faster, more collaboratively and effectively than ever before. And we do this at scale. With ING in particular, we are supporting its digital transformation strategies across the bank,” said Toms.  

OpenFin software is currently used at over 2,400 banks and asset managers across over 60 countries. The latest round of capital will be used to accelerate expansion of OpenFin OS to “every user within financial services”, according to the firm, whose software is already being used by 23 of top 25 global banks.  

ING first adopted OpenFin’s technology in 2021 to accelerate its desktop transformation strategy. “Being relevant, easy, personal and instant remains a priority for ING and our partnership with OpenFin further evidences our commitment in accelerating a superior customer and employee experience through digital,” Frederic Hofmann, co-head of ING Ventures, told The TRADE.  

The bank becomes the seventh major financial institution to invest in the operating system.  

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Dutch investment bank ING has a

Ljiljana Čortan will join ING in the role as of 1 January from UniCredit Bank’s HypoVereinsbank where she has served as chief risk officer since 2018.  

Čortan replaces former chief risk officer, Steven van Rijswijk, who assumed the role of chief executive at ING in July earlier this year. 

Čortan started her career in 1996 at Zagrebacka Banka, which became part of UniCredit Group in 2002. She held various roles including risk management, corporate banking, and project management. 

During her tenure at UniCredit, she has held positions including head of strategy and marketing for corporate and investment banking, global head of financial institutions, banks, and sovereigns, and head of group credit transactions. 

Čortan’s appointment follows the departure of ING’s long-standing CEO, Ralph Hamers, who departed this year to join UBS.  

UBS confirmed in February that Hamers would become group CEO in September, replacing Sergio Ermotti who had led the investment bank for the past nine years. Hamers was chief executive officer at ING since 2013 and had been with the bank since 1991.  

In June, ING named Steven van Rijswijk as its new chief executive officer. He succeeded Hamers in the summer after serving in various senior roles at the bank, including chief risk officer.

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ING said that Steven van Rijswijk, who is currently chief risk officer, will succeed Ralph Hamers as chief executive from 1 July this year. Van Rijswijk has been with ING since 1995 having previously held various senior roles within the bank’s mergers and acquisitions, equity capital markets, capital structuring and advisory teams.

“With almost 25 years at ING, of which three on the Executive Board, Steven has shown to have the right combination of experience, leadership skills and deep understanding of our business to lead ING into the next phase of our strategic direction,” said Hans Wijers, chairman of the supervisory board at ING. “Again, we want to thank Ralph for his contributions, preparing ING for the future with his vision and customer focus. Having been the longest serving CEO of ING, we wish him well in his next role.”

UBS confirmed in February that ING’s long-standing CEO, Hamers, would become group CEO of UBS in September, replacing Sergio Ermotti who has led the investment bank for the past nine years. Hamers first joined ING in 1991 and has served as chief executive since 2013.

“I congratulate Steven on his appointment,” Hamers commented. “Having worked with him over many years I am convinced that he will sustain the steps we have taken to prepare ING for a digital and mobile future.”

A search process for a new chief risk officer at ING has now begun. ING said that until a permanent chief risk officer is found, Tanate Phutrakul, CFO of ING, will temporarily assume responsibility for risk on the executive board, while Karst Jan Wolters, chief risk officer of wholesale banking at ING, takes over the day-to-day risk activities.

“After working so many years with our colleagues and customers around the world, I’m looking forward to further build on our efforts to strengthen ING and enhance our position as one of Europe’s leading digital banks,” Van Rijswijk concluded.

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The Series A investment round was led by Albion VC, with HSBC and ING Ventures also participating as new investors. The firms join existing shareholders Citi, Illuminate Financial, Commerzbank’s Main Incubator group, and The FinLab.

Speaking to The TRADE, TransFICC founder Steve Toland explained that the evolving fixed income market structure means that banks like Citi, HSBC and ING need to access more venues, but this poses major challenges due to differences in workflows. The firm’s clients currently include five global investment banks and one market data vendor.

“We have different workflows coming through from venues like Bloomberg and Tradeweb, whether that’s list trading or portfolio trading, but that buy-side flow is now being automated so the sell-side needs to adapt,” Toland said. “Banks need to connect to different venues to support new trading types, and they also need to ensure their liquidity is directly accessible to some clients. The infrastructure has to be more flexible, scalable and adaptable.”

The TransFICC ‘one API for e-trading’ platform aims to help the sell-side with challenges around the increasingly fragmented nature of fixed income markets, as Toland added each bank looks to connect with between 35 and 75 different trading venues. It allows firms to connect to venues and supports various workflows across rates and credit bonds, and more recently interest rate swaps.

The funds raised in the recent investment round will be used to accelerate TransFICC’s existing plans to scale up and support more trading venues. Although some of the funds will also be used to launch a buy-side version of its platform, following an uptick in interest for TransFICC’s connectivity services from asset managers – this year particularly.

“That has been driven by increased automation, portfolio trading mostly, and essentially, you need those automated trading types because they are far more efficient. But it’s also the impact of the long-term regulatory requirements for asset managers. Those on the repo side for example will be held to SFTR, so there’s a requirement to build automated electronic trading systems.”

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ING confirmed it made the €4.5 million investment in Eigen Technologies after participating in a $42 million series B funding round, alongside other investors including Goldman Sachs, Temasek, Lakestar and Dawn Capital.

The bank said that with Eigen Technologies, it will work on establishing NLP modules tailored to the financial industry’s need for data extraction. Both companies in partnership are looking to speed up the development of use cases for the technology in various areas.

“This partnership allows both companies to work closer together when implementing use cases through data and process analysis, so as to accelerate Eigen’s advantage in NLP as well as ING’s digital transformation,” said Benoît Legrand, ING’s chief innovation officer and CEO of ING Ventures, the capital arm of ING which made the investment.

Eigen’s NLP technology has been deployed across ING’s Libor transition and loan operations. According to its website, the FinTech has also worked with various institutions as clients or partners, including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Allen & Overy, Hiscox, and Deloitte.

“In the years we have worked with ING we have found them to have some of the most advanced thinking in the market on the application of machine learning in financial services, something that comes from their fantastic innovation culture,” added co-founder and CEO of Eigen Technologies, Dr Lewis Liu.

Last month, ING confirmed that its chief executive, Ralph Hamers, will step down from his role and become CEO of UBS as of November. Hamers replaces Sergio Ermotti, and has served as CEO of ING since 2013.

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