Australian investment manager Caledonia Investments has indicated that it upgrading to the latest version of the DST International (DSTi) global investment accounting solution, HiPortfolio for its Australian operations.

READ THE REST

According to rumours in the Indian national press, CME Group is conducting negotiations with a group of Indian domestic banks with a view to launching a local currency futures market.

READ THE REST

US investment firm Steel Partners has appointed ex-Morgan Stanley head Mark O’Friel as managing director of its Japanese business.

READ THE REST

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Kaven Leung, the head of Citigroup’s wealth management business, is leaving the bank. Deepak Sharma, currently chief of Citi’s non-US wealth management operations, is named as his successor in the report.

Following the opening of a Beijing office at the end of last year, DST International (DSTi) has opened a new office in Shanghai’s financial district in order to support its plans for expansion in the Chinese market.

READ THE REST

The Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) has released details of its plans to replace its trading system by the second half of next year. The upgrade is part of the exchange’s €212.3 million investment in its technology infrastructure, which it launched in 2005.

READ THE REST

Reuters says it has taken a minority stake in ChinaWeb, one of the largest online financial information providers in China. Financial terms of the all-cash transaction were not disclosed. ChinaWeb had gross assets of £2.6 million as at February 4 2008.

READ THE REST

Longtop Financial Technologies, a software developer and solutions provider targeting the financial services industry in China, has completed implementation of Swift connectivity for China Development Bank. Longtop has developed a proprietary Longtop Message Process System (MPS) for the Swift messaging protocol, for which it claims the biggest market share among banks in China connecting to the Swift network.

PerTOOLS, provider of time series analysis and data extractor tools, has appointed IBN Technologies, a hedge fund outsourcing specialist, a global reseller. IBN Technologies is based in India. This alliance is another step towards PerTOOLS’s plan both to have a global network of resellers before the end of this year, and to service and expand its global client base, according to the vendor.

Australia’s Eclectic Capital Management, a manager of long/short equity strategies, has selected Impact Investing’s IMPACT solution as its strategic portfolio management and construction tool. IMPACT will support Eclectic’s structured management approach to oversee investment risk, long/short position analysis and in articulating its investment process to clients, prospects and consultants.

Mizuho Securities Asia (Mizuho) has begun live operations on Broadridge Financial Solutions’ CCASS (Central Clearing and Settlement System) Adapter in Hong Kong. Mizuho is using Broadridge’s adapter to support the settlement of its domestic equities business in Hong Kong. The CCASS Adapter provides a two-way interface between any back office securities processing system and Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited’s Central Clearing and Settlement System. In addition to automating the file generation of settlement instructions, the CCASS Adapter also handles trade settlement and position reconciliation within the host system on receipt of the relevant reports from CCASS.

Interdealer broker ICAP is launching non-deliverable forwards (NDFs) on seven Asian currencies (and the Russian rouble) on its electronic foreign exchange trading platform EBS on March 3. The Asian NDFs are in Chinese renminbi, Korean won, Indian rupee, Indonesian rupiah, Malaysian ringgit, Philippine peso and Taiwan dollar, and are of one month duration. David Rutter, deputy CEO of ICAP Electronic Broking, says the NDFs will be available to EBS clients through the same channels as ICAP’s existing spot FX product offering.

The Osaka Securities Exchange and International Securities Exchange Holdings have agreed to build a cooperative relationship as the first step towards the formation of a joint venture and the launch of a new, jointly owned trading platform with which they hope to revitalise the Japanese equity options market.

GL Trade, provider of integrated multi-asset and multi-market software solutions, has signed its seventh financial company to GL Clearvision, its middle office solution for clearing listed derivatives on the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX).

MIDF Amanah Investment Bank (MIDF Investment) has chosen IQ/MAX, the VoIP-powered digital console system from IPC Systems, to replace its existing equipment and technology. This win signifies the largest supply of IQ/MAX to date in Malaysia, which IPC considers a key growth market. IPC provides IP-enabled trading infrastructure that includes disaster recovery and compliance-related functionality, with the IQ/MAX turret, its second generation trading console.

The Tokyo Commodity Exchange (TOCOM) and the Osaka Securities Exchange (OSE) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on co-operation between the two exchanges. The exchanges will explore the possibility of co-operation by holding discussions in the areas of infrastructure, including electronic trading platforms, and joint marketing targeted at investors, as well as by sharing ideas on the joint development of new products and services.

Risk and compliance specialist Fortent says Mizuho Financial Group , with assets of close to $1.3 trillion, will implement Fortent’s anti-money laundering (AML) solution throughout its domestic Japanese operations. Mizuho will deploy Fortent AML Version 6 – the latest version of Fortent’s AML system that features enhanced correspondent banking capabilities and alert investigation tools. Fortent has fully localised AML Version 6 for the Japanese market, it says.

Tokyo Stock Exchange’s president and CEO Atsushi Saito has issued an apology for the failure of the exchange’s new Derivatives Trading System on Friday February 8 and says the problem is now fixed. “We at the TSE once again wish to express our deepest regret for the inconvenience caused to investors and many others involved in the market as a result of the derivatives system malfunction that occurred on February 8,” the CEO says in a statement. After a thorough investigation of the system had been conducted, necessary program correction was completed by Monday, February 11, with all the contracts including TOPIX Futures March 2008 contracts traded normally from the morning of Tuesday February 12.

Thailand Securities Depository’s (TSD’s) board of directors has approved in principle a move to transfer its clearing and settlement unit to a subsidiary, Thailand Clearing House (TCH), and so create one integrated clearing house for a variety of financial instruments. This initiative, to be completed in 2009, is designed to reduce operational costs and make risk management measures more efficient. Currently, TCH handles derivatives clearing only. “The integration will produce a more appropriate fee structure and bring services into line with international standards,” TSD chief executive officer Sopawadee Lertmanaschai says.

Nomura Securities has expanded its offering to institutional investors by giving access to its new algorithmic strategy engine through MetaBit’s XiliX trading platform. With this move by Nomura, Japan’s largest securities firm, MetaBit has further increased its Asian equity connectivity services. Joji Watanabe, managing director, electronic trading services department at Nomura Securities, comments: “Providing access to our algorithmic strategy engine through MetaBit is an excellent opportunity to offer Nomura’s electronic trading services to a wide range of institutional investors.”