ICMA Podcast

In this podcast, Robert Koller, CAIA and CEO and Fredrik Creutz, Co-Founder and chairman of NowCM, discuss their company’s innovative approach to capital markets. They outline NowCM's three main focuses: digitalising the bond issuance process, operating a regulated issuance vehicle in Luxembourg, and managing a regulated marketplace for primary issuance in Paris. Key topics include significant efficiency improvements in the market, reduction of costs and setup times, and enhanced liquidity and price discovery through real-time capabilities. The conversation also explores the critical role of robust data models in supporting document management and transaction processes, as well as the potential, and challenges of, integrating AI in financial technology.

valantic FSA’s Andy Browning and Andrea Pirino discuss their fintech product's unique features, emphasising the necessary tension between stability and innovation in mission-critical workflow. They explore the inspiration behind its development, focusing on adapting to evolving technology while maintaining a strong client focus and addressing long-tail client needs. Highlighting industry trends and the shift from the “what” to the “how” and “who” of products, they position their product to evolve by continued investment in products and client relationships. They advocate for a balanced approach to innovation and compliance, viewing the potential in the modernization of legacy systems and regulations like MiFID and SFTR as opportunities for improvement of the ecosystem.

ICMA's Nicolette Moser, Senior Director, provides an overview of recent policy recommendations by FSB and IOSCO relating to open-ended funds.

ICMA’s Alex Westphal, Senior Director, Repo and Collateral markets, talks about the latest meetings and discussions of ICMA’s European Repo and Collateral Council (ERCC).

ICMA's Simone Bruno, Associate Data Analyst, presents the key findings from ICMA's European Secondary Market Data Report for 2023.

ICMA's Nina Suhaib-Wolf, Director, Market Practice & Regulatory Policy, talks about Bond Market Transparency and presents highlights about ICMA's response to the recent FCA consultation

ICMA's Ruari Ewing, Senior Director - Primary Markets, discusses the EU Listing Act (the EU prospectus, market abuse and listing regimes), the UK retail disclosure framework for CCIs (replacing the EU PRIIPs regime), the UK FCA anti-greenwashing rule and the EU CSDR’s cash penalties regime.

ICMA's Katie Kelly, Senior Director, highlights the importance of offering work experience to students in today's environment in the UK

ICMA's Andy Hill, Deputy Head of Market Practice and Regulatory Policy, provides a crisp overview of the background to, and findings of, ICMA's new report, Liquidity and Resilience in the Core European Sovereign Bond Markets.

ICMA's Paul Richards, Managing Director, Market Practice and Regulatory Policy, considers lessons from LIBOR transition in the bond market under English law.

Listen now to the latest podcast from the Asset Management and Investors Council (AMIC), ICMA's dedicated forum advocating the interests of buy-side members, including asset managers, institutional investors, private banks, pension funds, and insurance companies, among others. Returning for this episode are industry experts, Bob Parker, former Chairman of AMIC and Senior Adviser to ICMA, alongside Massimiliano Castelli, PhD MSc, Managing Director and Head of Strategy & Advice at UBS Asset Management, who also serves as the Co-Chair of the AMIC Executive Committee. In the podcast: The team discuss global fixed income and equity markets, which continue to rally from a low in late October 2023. Is there a danger of a bubble? Learn more about AMIC: https://www.icmagroup.org/market-practice-and-regulatory-policy/asset-management/ If you have questions or topics you'd like our guests to address in future episodes, please feel free to get in contact via email: AMIC@icmagroup.org.

Tommaso Di Grazia and Ed Tyndale-Biscoe, Heads of Fixed Income and Secured Funding Product Management at ION Markets, speak about how ION’s one-stop shop for trading solutions sets it apart from other fintech vendors. They also discuss how ION's API-based technology enables clients to customize core functionality to suit their specific business needs.

Murex Head of Securities Finance Product Management Sabine Farhat discusses shifts in the space driven by business and regulatory trends, emphasising the importance of balance sheet optimisation and increased scrutiny on collateral and liquidity. Sabine highlights the growing demand for centralisation, automation, and digitalisation, encouraged by standardisation from regulators and entities like ICMA, and how Murex addresses these evolving client needs in the changing securities finance landscape.

Jonathan Lee, Senior Regulatory Reporting Specialist and Matthew Vincent, Managing Director from RegTech firm Kaizen, talk about the innovation they are seeing in compliance and regulatory reporting as the space continues to evolve. With all the challenges and complexities that firms face, Jonathan and Matthew explain the various solutions that Kaizen offers to help firms fulfil their compliance obligations, whether it be regulatory reporting assurance, shareholding disclosure, trade and communications surveillance, research management or regulatory rules management on Single Rulebook.

Founder and CEO, Sanjay Garodia, introduces OMAS - the full lifecycle product for primary Debt Capital Markets. Hear his views on standardisation, partnerships and collaborations, data transfer and interoperability, and the impact of AI on the financial markets and the FinTech vendors that support it. He shares his experience of how smaller, nimble FinTech firms can help banks navigate internal hurdles around the adoption of new technology solutions, easing regulatory compliance headaches and the perseverance that is required to help clients achieve their goals.

Mark Dalton, Managing Director, and James Eves, Senior Executive, of ConvEx discuss the emerging role of specialist independent calculation agency services. Originally set up to provide specialist advice and calculation services to the equity-linked market, ConvEx has since expanded to debt capital markets instruments (capital securities, senior bonds with make-whole calls, LIBOR transition), derivatives and workplace compensation plans.

Raja Palaniappan, co-founder and CEO, discusses his transition from secondary market trading to revolutionising the primary issuance process of fixed income securities through digitisation. Origin, a SaaS platform, focuses on automating every stage of primary issuance to enhance efficiency, reduce risk, and manage unstructured data transfer.

Steve Toland, co-founder, discusses the company's focus on providing e-trading systems for fixed income markets. Steve highlights innovations in API normalisation and automated trading tools to facilitate connectivity and efficiency for their customers in a rapidly evolving and fragmented market landscape.

Todd Crowther , Head of Collateral Services, and Jon Ford, Head of Fixed Income , unpack the relationship between innovation and regulatory compliance in the constantly evolving industry landscape, and share insights from Pirum’s 20-year journey. From launching its cloud-based service before ‘SaaS’ (Software as a Service) was a thing, to its current position as a preferred post-trade services vendor across securities lending, repo, and collateral management and optimisation.

Charlie Berman, CEO and founder, shares his experience driving agora's mission to revolutionise the bond markets by leveraging distributed ledger technology to enhance efficiency and transparency. Starting with the origination process and heading towards full lifecycle management using smart contracts, agora is collaborating with stakeholders and new entrants to address longstanding inefficiencies and usher in a new era of innovation in capital markets.