Hi Fintech Futurists,
Welcome back to our podcast series! For those that want to subscribe in your app of choice, you can now find us at Apple, Spotify, or on RSS.
In this conversation, we geek out with Horacio Barakat, who serves as the Head of Digital Innovation for Capital Markets and the Head of DLT for the Repo Platform of Broadridge, about digital transformation, capital markets, and the role of blockchain in the institutional part of the financial industry.
Additionally, we explore the embedded complexities of capital markets and how fundamental they are to the smooth functioning of our economy, determining the growth of companies, and funding expansion. Touching on everything from the engine that powers capital markets, how that engine has evolved to becoming computational, and lastly how companies like Broadridge are leading the deep work going on in making that engine better.
For premium subscribers, a full transcript is provided along with the recording.
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Excerpt
Horacio Barakat:
…That is an interesting question. It really depends on the firm. So currently I would say, let's go through the systems first. So, it is basically the front office system, the front office systems is where the trader enters the trade and acts on the trade. That is the front office system that has connectivity to the various venues and that connectivity could be, or not, at different technology providers.
And then you have the middle office systems which basically aggregate and normalize all the information, that is another layer of technology that you have to apply to that. Then you have the back-office systems which basically provides the books and records for all the transactions that happen across the firm. And then the connectivity within that back office onto the CSDs that has also their own different set of bundles of technologies that connect to the back office and the front office. So that is, at a high level, all the packages of systems that exist from the execution of the trade to the settlement of the trade.
One thing that the market is going towards is the simplification of front to back technologies, to create consistency between all those systems, and that is something that Broadridge is doing. Trying to simplify the way and the systems that are involved from the capturing of the trade, or the execution of the trade, to the back-office and the settlement of the trade. The more you can, not consolidate, but simplify that technology and make it consistent as opposed to having different systems, different vendors, different way of doing things, different standards, the more you can simplify it the easier it's going to be, and the more efficient it's going to be with less breaks, less reconciliations required for the transactions to flow front to back.
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