Citi Securities and Fund Services has entered into an agreement with the Korea Securities Depository (KSD) to provide daily turnaround investment services to the Hong Kong and Japanese market. The service will be available to Korean securities firms through the KSD in order to allow them to better manage their offshore investments, says Citi.

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Swift has indicated that it is opening an office in Seoul and has been in discussions with the Korea Securities Depository (KSD) about extending its settlement platform to overseas investments.

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Citi Securities and Fund Services, a division of Global Transaction Services, has launched outsourced clearing and settlement processing services for fixed income in Thailand. These account operator services are primarily aimed at foreign broker dealers in Thailand that have or are intending to establish a domestic presence and are applicable for both on and off exchange trading.

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As part of the revamp of its equities and debt settlement system, the New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZX) has chosen to use SwiftNet for its clearing and settlement messaging. The move will bring the exchange into line with international requirements for standardised message types.

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China’s biggest FX trader, the Bank of China, has gone live with Misys’ front-to-back office multi asset class and cross border derivatives system, Misys Opics Plus.

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BNP Paribas Securities (Japan) has signed a new, multi-year agreement to use the Broadridge Jasdec (Japan Securities Depository Center) Adapter for its paperless equities operation. This will provide BNP Paribas with the capability to support its Japanese equities business for domestic clients as well as the clearing/custody operations they perform on behalf of their affiliates, Broadridge says, helping the firm to meet compliance requirements associated with Japan’s mandatory paperless equity regulations, which take effect in January 2009.

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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.

Euroclear and Central Depository Services (India) Limited (CDSL) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to co-operate and develop a closer working relationship in the future. Both organisations aim at promoting cross-border investment to foster the prosperity of their respective clients and markets. Euroclear and CDSL will explore the timing and possibility of establishing an operational link between the central securities depositories.

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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.

Japanese investment firms are set to get full front to back office straight-through processing (STP) for domestic and international trades, following an agreement between software house Charles River Development (Charles River) and Omgeo.

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Euroclear Bank is seeking to upgrade its Hong Kong office into a fully-fledged branch office – pending a licence from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority – and to staff it with up to 25 more operations personnel and some senior level operations executives and legal staff, to offer improved services to its clients in Asia from April.

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The Asian operations of what is described as one of the world’s largest banks has gone live with SmartStream Technologies’ TLM Reconciliations, centralising its securities operations, based in Hong Kong, on to a single platform managed by the bank’s global reconciliations support team.

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Bursa Malaysia Securities Clearing is enhancing its settlement service for Clearing Participants with the introduction of an automated settlement system centralised on Bursa Malaysia’s settlement infrastructure.

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Thailand Securities Depository (TSD) will bring its services into line with those of the Group of 30 (G30), the international body promoting standards in clearing and settlement. This, in turn, will move the Thai capital market’s performance closer to the International Organization of Securities Commission (IOSCO)’s benchmarks, TSD says.

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International financial messaging provider Swift opened its first office in India in Mumbai on November 26. This is a response to the sustained growth of the financial services sector in India, Swift says, and the rise in international relationships between Indian financial institutions and counterparties worldwide.

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Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEx) has introduced a framework for third party clearing on its securities market. A stock exchange participant (EP) can now trade on the exchange without becoming a clearing participant of Hong Kong Securities and Clearing Company (HKSCC), the wholly-owned subsidiary of HKEx that operates the Central Clearing and Settlement System (CCASS), by outsourcing all its CCASS-related clearing functions to a general clearing participant (GCP) of HKSCC, which will assume all the EP’s trade settlement obligations in CCASS.

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FFastFill says it has signed a contract for its Eclipse multi-asset back office system with a major Australian-based financial services company. Under the deal the vendor will provide a fully hosted software as a service solution for the capture, processing and management of a range of financial instruments including listed derivatives, CFDs, equities and foreign exchange.
This is FFastFill’s first Australian customer, according to the managing director of its post-trade processing division Patrick Thornton-Smith, and the win demonstrates the global nature of its service and support, he claims.

Singapore Exchange (SGX) has agreed in principle to accept the offer of a 20 per cent equity stake in Philippine Dealing System Holdings (PDS) for an estimated investment of Php150m (S$5m). This investment is offered to SGX at par value of Php100 per share and the proposed acquisition is subject to mutually-agreeable terms and necessary approvals.

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New York-based Electronic Securities Processing (ESP) is seeking to reduce the settlement burden for investment firms trading on multiple different destinations in Asia with the launch of its Central Counterparty Clearing (CCC) service in Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and Australia.

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