The Great ESG Journey In 2021, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) considerations are emerging as a mainstream theme for the capital markets. Associated with sustainability, the ESG concept integrates environmental...
Read More
The British decision to withdraw from the EU represents the most significant shift in UK politics in a half-century. Although the terms for a successful withdrawal are not yet finalised, the British government’s current approach does not include an equivalent customs partnership with the EU.
Can Agile Methods Be Applied to the Enterprise? To expand Agile principles from individual IT teams throughout large multidisciplinary organisations is possible but the crucial first step must come from...
Read More
GreySpark Highlights 'Prevention Is Better Than Cure' Recent events have amply demonstrated the continuing need for rigorous testing and quality assurance processes within financial institutions. Current IT implementation issues affecting...
Read More
The growing use of algorithms to automate trading activities is garnering increasing regulatory attention, which highlights the need for dedicated risk management processes and systems.
Trade surveillance encapsulates the processes and procedures that help financial institutions detect and prevent trading rule violations. While various regulations push for increased scrutiny and security, MAR and MiFID II notably have far-reaching implications for trade behavior, post-trade surveillance and pre-trade risk controls checks.
Few banks today develop truly differentiated technology, having moved from being ’technology makers’ to ‘technology takers’. The development of proprietary software has taken a back seat, and is now only considered in situations where creating a competitive advantage or controlling sensitive data is of paramount importance.
Cryptocurrencies: Understanding their Cyber Security Risks Cryptocurrencies have captivated the international financial services industry. 2018 has seen cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin experience outlandish appreciation in value, recording...
Read More
One of the most difficult challenges companies face today is how to be more flexible and adaptive in a dynamic business environment. ‘Speed to market’ demands identifying and capitalizing on opportunities as soon as they appear and has become a major driver for the adoption of DevOps in the financial market industry. These changes have paved the way for new design approaches such as Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) based on automated configuration and provisioning.
Under MIFID II, asset managers were free to use different methods for calculating transaction costs – either by interpreting the MIFID II requirements themselves or, as most firms have done, by leveraging PRIIPS methodology.
Following the 2008 global financial crisis and recent malpractice scandals, institutions across the financial services industry have started taking proactive measures to protect themselves from market and operational risks by improving their surveillance capabilities.
2017 has been an exciting time for GreySpark due to the growth of our two new offices in New York and Edinburgh. Edinburgh has done extremely well, hiring three new consultants over the summer period. New York has also made some great progress and we have built a great pipe of consultants who are ready to go in 2018.