Waters magazine - The Cross-Asset Revolution

Waters magazine - The Cross-Asset Revolution: "1 July 2005
COVER STORY
The Cross-Asset Revolution

HSBC and Deutsche Bank rally the troops to break down the walls between different asset classes. Cross-asset-class trading is coming.

The revolution has begun, the orders have been handed down, and the troops are on the march. HSBC is forming a crack team of e-trading experts that will wage war on the technological divisions that separate its multiple asset-classes. Not to be outdone, Deutsche Bank (DB) has reformed its global IT management team in order to consolidate its IT infrastructure across asset classes. For both investment firms, internal-political barriers have been overcome and new faces have joined the team. Technology is the final hurdle in an upheaval that is sure to transform the financial markets.

Case in point: HSBC is radically overhauling its trading technology infrastructure to create a cross-asset-class messaging platform to support its electronic trading operations globally, slated to be completed by next summer. The bank's own revolutionary is Kevin Bourne, the global head of execution trading for HSBC's investment banking arm.

'We now have some very experienced people whose core skills are messaging infrastructure and messaging standards,' says Bourne, who says that he and his team are 'starting from scratch.'

Meanwhile, one of HSBC's chief rivals is hard at work. There have been big changes in the halls of DB with a high-level shakeup in the German bank's global IT management teams which started earlier this year, as reported in Waters' sibling publication Dealing with Technology. COO Hermann-Josef Lamberti has overseen the changes that not only concern asset convergence, but also the bank's retail arm integrated with the investment bank's infrastructure.

But HSBC was the first to reveal its plans to the world. The HSBC team's expertise covers all messaging structures used in financial services for transaction manageme"

Waters magazine - A Brand New Floor

Waters magazine - A Brand New Floor: "1 December 2005
TRADING TECHNOLOGY
A Brand New Floor

HSBC Securities USA moves up Fifth Avenue to its new midtown Manhattan trading floor.

HSBC Securities USA has returned a group of traders to a revamped trading floor at 452 Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan, after having spent a few months this summer at a temporary trading floor down the road at 417 Fifth Avenue

Completed this September, the move is part of an effort to revamp an equity platform around key client segments in a more accommodating location, say HSBC officials. The 452 Fifth Avenue location was also the site for a Republic Bank of New York trading floor that had a capacity for at least 350 positions. After HSBC acquired Republic, the new owner built a new floor from scratch approximately five years ago.

For the revamped floor, the sales trader and sector trading contingents have moved in as well as 'a growing research sales group,' says James T. Leman, managing director, head of Americas, electronic equities trading, HSBC Securities (USA), in New York.


'At the far end of the floor is the equity capital markets group. The growing connectivity, program trading and direct market access team has also moved in. We also have certain business management and technology support personnel on the floor,' Leman says.

Officials decline to disclose the number of traders that now occupy the revamped floor, but they do confirm that there is room for growth. 'I think there's going to be growth in the research sales area, and in the area that supports hedge fund-related services as well as in the program and connectivity space,' Leman says. 'I think there will be a few additions in the sales trading and trading areas, but they're pretty much fleshed out.'

On the desks, traders will find flat screens and BT trading turrets, which mirror HSBC's deployments of BT voice systems in Hong Kong. Officials at BT decline to comment about the turret deployment "