OPTIC is returning for its second year! AFME’s annual Operations, Post-Trade, Technology & Innovation conference brings together the industry’s leading voices, to discuss the role of technology in developing capital markets in Europe, with particular focus on the world of operations and post trade. OPTIC 2023 will take place in Brussels, with a two-day agenda packed with keynote addresses from regulatory authorities, thought-provoking panels and speeches from Europe's leading financial institutions, and ample networking opportunities for attendees. Delegates will hear from practitioners, technologists, and policymakers on the most important innovations happening here and now, and what the future landscape might look like. Our expert speakers will discuss the opportunities and challenges that are unique to Europe, and contemplate whether the capital markets ecosystem, and its underpinning regulatory framework, is well-positioned to support innovation. As many initiatives move into their ‘delivery’ phase, the need for collaboration has emerged as a key trend. Join us to hear practical, real-world examples of how organisations from the public and private sector are collaborating innovatively, and working together to solve common challenges. Another key theme across the conference will be the role of data in delivering change, including how data can be leveraged by banks, regulators and infrastructures to drive strategy, and how new technologies are changing the way in which we store and share data. Join us on the second day for ‘Digital Assets Day’, as we take a deep-dive on the rapidly evolving digital assets landscape. We focus on the underlying technologies of DLT and tokenisation, and consider to what extent they will be leveraged to transform traditional markets. This event is attended by senior capital market professionals working in operations, post-trade, technology, regulation, and policy. Registration fees:• AFME member: €899 + VAT• Non member: €1249 + VATMulti-booking discount:• 10% off when booking 3 or more delegates at the same time• 20% off when booking 5 or more delegates at the same timeMulti booking discounts can be applied at check out for group booking.Complimentary subject to verification:• Investor: promo code INVESTOR• Regulator: promo code REGULATOR• Press: promo code PRESS for in person attendance or VIRTUALPRESS to receive a live stream link (this link is only available to press)Note: Promo codes are case sensitive
As an international central securities depository (ICSD), headquartered in Luxembourg, Clearstream, which is part of Deutsche Börse Group, provides the post-trade infrastructure for the Eurobond market and services for securities from 58 domestic markets worldwide. With 16 trillion Euros in assets under custody, Clearstream is one of the world’s largest settlement and custody firms for domestic and international securities including investment funds. As part of our European custody solution, the Investor-CSD model benefits from direct connectivity to T2S which allows Clearstream to offer settlement instruction directly into the domestic markets and with T2S deadlines. Best-in-class asset servicing capabilities, such as digitised proxy-voting and tax services support our customers in increasing operational efficiency along the custody chain. https://www.clearstream.com
Euroclear is one of the world’s largest providers of domestic and cross-border settlement and related services for bond, equity, ETF and mutual fund transactions. Euroclear is a proven, resilient capital market infrastructure committed to delivering risk-mitigation, automation and efficiency at scale for its global client franchise. The Euroclear group includes Euroclear Bank – which is rated AA by Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s – as well as Euroclear Belgium, Euroclear Finland, Euroclear France, Euroclear Nederland, Euroclear Sweden, Euroclear UK & International and the fund platform MFEX. The Euroclear group settled the equivalent of EUR 1,066 trillion in securities transactions in 2022, representing 304 million domestic and cross-border transactions, and held EUR 35.6 trillion in assets for clients by end of 2022. https://www.euroclear.com
Herbert Smith Freehills is a leading global law firm with over 5,000 people, including 500 partners, in 25 offices across Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and the US. As one of the world’s leading law firms, we advise many of the biggest and most ambitious organisations across all major regions of the globe. Our clients trust us with their most important transactions, disputes and projects because of our ability to cut through complexity and mitigate risk. Positioned to support the major trade flows, we help the world’s top companies thrive in the global economy. We recognise the transformational power of blockchain and digital assets. They offer an array of opportunities to businesses and individuals, from increasing trust and transparency, simplifying and accelerating processes through to providing new technology-led investment options. But they also operate in a rapidly evolving environment which raises complex issues that require deep technical, legal, and regulatory expertise to navigate. We bring together a global network of over 300 tech savvy lawyers, several with backgrounds in science and technology, to help clients capitalise on the opportunities offered by blockchain and digital assets, while complying with ever-changing law and regulation. As the legal and regulatory landscape continues to evolve, we also engage with industry groups and policy makers on important issues and maintain our strong relationships with regulators and governments globally. Our lawyers chair the Financial Law Committee and the Regulatory Law Committee of the City of London Law Society and sit on the steering committee of the Global Blockchain Convergence Industry Group. We have also partnered with the Digital Pound Foundation, a non-profit association exploring a potential UK central bank digital currency.
Protiviti (www.protiviti.com) is a global consulting firm that delivers deep expertise, objective insights, a tailored approach, and unparalleled collaboration to help leaders confidently face the future. Protiviti and our independent and locally owned Member Firms provide clients with consulting and managed solutions in finance, technology, operations, data, digital, legal, governance, risk, and internal audit through our network of more than 85 offices in over 25 countries. Named to the 2022 Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® list, Protiviti has served more than 80 percent of Fortune 100 and nearly 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies. The firm also works with smaller, growing companies, including those looking to go public, as well as with government agencies. Protiviti is a wholly owned subsidiary of Robert Half (NYSE: RHI). Founded in 1948, Robert Half is a member of the S&P 500 index. Neither Robert Half nor Protiviti is a law firm, and we do not provide legal representation. Robert Half project attorneys and Protiviti professionals do not constitute a law firm among themselves.
We’re the global specialist in financial transactions – the way the world moves value across borders, through cities and over seas. We keep funds flowing, supply chains moving and the world's economies turning. No other organisation can address the scale, precision and trust that this demands. We're unique too: a neutral cooperative established to provide a safe, secure and reliable way for the financial community to send transactions across borders. We’re always striving to be better and are constantly evolving in an ever-changing landscape. We innovate tirelessly, test exhaustively, then implement fast. In a connected and challenging era, our mission has never been more relevant.
Since 2006, Amazon Web Services has been the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud. AWS has been continually expanding its services to support virtually any workload, and it now has more than 200 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), media, and application development, deployment, and management from 99 Availability Zones within 31 geographic regions, with announced plans for 15 more Availability Zones and five more AWS Regions in Canada, Israel, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Thailand. Millions of customers—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—trust AWS to power their infrastructure, become more agile, and lower costs. To learn more about AWS, visit www.murex.com
BNP Paribas’s Securities Services business is a leading global custodian providing multi-asset post-trade and asset servicing solutions to buy-side and sell-side market participants, corporates and issuers. With a global reach covering 90+ markets, its custody network is one of the most extensive in the industry, enabling clients to maximise their investment opportunities worldwide.
Broadridge, a global Fintech leader with more than $5 billion in revenues, provides the critical infrastructure that powers investing, corporate governance and communications to enable better financial lives. We deliver technology-driven solutions that drive digital transformation for our clients and help them get ahead of today’s challenges to capitalise on what’s next.
Delta Capita is a leading global consulting, mutualised managed services, and technology solutions provider with a unique combination of experience in financial services and capability in technology innovation. Headquartered in London with offices around the world, Delta Capita work with the world’s top financial institutions. Across the financial services industry, Delta Capita works with clients to help improve efficiency, reduce costs, increase scalability and comply with global regulations. Delta Capita’s Consulting and Post Trade capabilities are differentiated in the market by bringing together a combination of senior and ex- C-suite industry practitioners as well as experienced change professionals to help clients solve the most complex challenges.
Endava is reimagining the relationship between people and technology. By leveraging next generation technologies, our agile, multi-disciplinary teams provide a combination of product & technology strategies, intelligent experiences, and world-class engineering. We collaborate with our clients, seamlessly integrating with their teams, and help them become digital, experience-driven businesses by assisting them in their journey from idea generation to development and deployment of products, platforms and solutions. Endava has over 11,000 employees, as of March 2022, in close-to-client locations in the United States, the United Kingdom, Western Europe, Australia, and Singapore and nearshore delivery centres in Central Europe and Latin America.
Euronext Securities is a leading provider of post-trade services, representing the third-largest Central Securities Depository (CSD) operator in Europe. The Euronext Securities CSD network encompasses the CSDs in Denmark, Italy, Norway and Portugal. We provide secure and resilient settlement and custody solutions and a portfolio of services to support our clients along the entire value chain. At the heart of the market infrastructure, we offer market participants an improved experience by streamlining operations and processes across our CSDs, supported by our continuously evolving technology. The Euronext Securities CSD network represents over €6.3 trillion in assets under custody, 126 million yearly settlement instructions and more than 7,800 issuers.
SIX operates and develops infrastructure services for the Swiss and Spanish Stock Exchanges, for Post-Trade Services, Banking Services and Financial Information with the aim of raising efficiency, quality and innovative capacity across the entire value chain of the Swiss and Spanish financial centers. The company is owned by its users (120 banks). With a workforce of 3,685 employees and a presence in 20 countries, it generated operating income of CHF 1.5 billion and Group net profit of CHF 73.5 million in 2021. www.six-group.com
With 50 years of experience, DTCC is the premier post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry. From 20 locations around the world, DTCC, through its subsidiaries, automates, centralizes, and standardizes the processing of financial transactions, mitigating risk, increasing transparency and driving efficiency for thousands of broker/dealers, custodian banks and asset managers. Industry owned and governed, the firm simplifies the complexities of clearing, settlement, asset servicing, data management, data reporting and information services across asset classes, bringing increased security and soundness to financial markets. To learn more, visit www.dtcc.com
Duco is the #1 provider of AI-powered data automation. We are a best-in-class Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) enterprise platform that helps financial services, insurance and fintech companies manage their mission-critical data. Many of the world’s largest institutions rely on Duco to ensure their data is accurate, their costs are controlled, their operations streamlined and their business remains agile. Financial services firms spend tens of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of hours every year trying to solve data problems. Our mission is to “make managing data easy” by replacing spreadsheets and technology-heavy solutions in finance and operations departments. We automate the processing of data throughout its lifecycle, from data ingestion, to data preparation, validation, reconciliation and publication to downstream platforms. Our cloud-native, no-code platform puts the data in the hands of the business users, reducing the dependency on technology teams.
For more than 35 years, Murex has provided enterprise-wide, cross-asset financial technology solutions to capital markets players. Its cross-function platform, MX.3, supports trading, treasury, risk and post-trade operations, enabling clients to better meet regulatory requirements, manage enterprise-wide risk and control IT costs. With more than 60,000 daily users in more than 65 countries, Murex has clients across the financial services industry, from banking and asset management to energy and commodities. Murex is an independent company with over 2,700 employees across 19 locations. Murex is committed to providing cutting-edge technology, superior customer service and unique product innovation. MX.3 is specifically designed and engineered to meet the multifaceted challenges of a transforming financial industry. To find out more, visit www.murex.com
Baton Systems is revolutionising the entire front-to-back post-trade process, introducing interoperable and connected digital market infrastructures from trade matching through to settlement. Empowering financial institutions to take control with automated, rules-based workflows, access to real-time information, and on-demand settlement, Baton is redefining what post-trade processing should look like: fully connected, friction-free, flexible and transparent. • Founded in 2016 by Silicon Valley technologists and capital market specialists, Baton’s solutions are now being used by several of the world’s largest financial institutions to facilitate the movement of billions of dollars of cash and securities on a daily basis.
Meritsoft, a Cognizant Company, is the leading fintech innovator in capital markets post-trade process automation. With deep expertise and proven technology we help financial institutions digitize and manage their post-trade processing and compliance requirements across trade expenses, billings and cash flows, payment and settlement of taxes and claims, research payments and commission sharing agreements, and CSDR and fails management process automation. Our solutions incorporate powerful analytics and MI capabilities, helping financial institutions to control costs, maintain liquidity and meet their compliance obligations. Modular, scalable, and with a range of deployment options, including on-premise, cloud and BPaaS, our solutions drive back-office efficiencies that are transforming operations for the digital era.
The Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) is the global representative of the alternative investment industry, with around 2,100 corporate members in over 60 countries. AIMA’s fund manager members collectively manage more than US$2.5 trillion in hedge fund and private credit assets. AIMA draws upon the expertise and diversity of its membership to provide leadership in industry initiatives such as advocacy, policy and regulatory engagement, educational programmes and sound practice guides. AIMA proactively communicates with the media and the general public to increase awareness around the value of the industry. AIMA set up the Alternative Credit Council, or ACC, to help firms focused in the private credit and direct lending space. The ACC currently represents over 200 members that manage US$450 billion of private credit assets. AIMA is committed to developing skills and education standards and is a co-founder of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst designation (CAIA) - first and only specialised educational standard for alternative investment specialists. AIMA is governed by its Council (Board of Directors).
ASSOCIAZIONE INTERMEDIARI MERCATI FINANZIARI -ASSOSIM represents the interests of the intermediaries active on the Italian financial markets, namely, Italian investment firms, investment banks and subsidiaries of foreign investment services providers. ASSOSIM carries out advocacy and advisory activities, training and organization of conferences and seminars. Its members account for nearly the entire amount of the transactions carried out on the Italian stock markets as from Italy, and more than 80% when considering cross border transactions. Since 2007, the membership has been extended to law firms, consulting and IT solutions development companies, and to those entities providing services to financial intermediaries.
The Digital Euro Association (DEA) is a think tank specializing in central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), stablecoins, crypto assets, and other forms of digital money. In particular, it focuses on the private and the public digital euro. The Digital Euro Association (DEA) is an independent voice of society, committed to advancing values such as freedom, privacy, and transparent governance in digital money.
The Digital Pound Foundation is an independent organisation incorporated in June 2021 to work with a variety of stakeholders and participants towards the implementation of a well-designed Digital Pound. Whilst most CBDC experiments have involved private sector technology providers, the overwhelming majority of these experiments, to date, have not involved participation from other private sector actors. The Digital Pound Foundation is unique in proposing a model whereby the public and private sectors can fully engage in the design, development and adoption of a digital Pound, thus contributing to its successful roll-out and helping drive forward the UK’s transition to a digital economy.
The European Association of CCP Clearing Houses (EACH) represents the interests of Central Counterparties (CCPs) in Europe since 1992. CCPs are financial market infrastructures that significantly contribute to safer, more efficient and transparent global financial markets. EACH currently has 19 members from 15 different European countries. EACH is registered in the European Union Transparency Register with number 36897011311-96.”
FinTech Marketing brings together a community of over thousand specialist marketers from the financial services and technology industry across the globe. It provides its members with a unique platform to build and grow a network of marketing professionals, share insights and best practices, to train and learn and develop marketing careers through the mentoring programme in the niche sector that is FinTech.
Fintech Belgium is the Federation BY and FOR fintechs active in Belgium. Our non-profit organisation represents more than 130 fintechs, insurtechs, regtechs, wealthtech, ... and animates the largest community of experts interested in Digital Finance in Belgium. Our 3 main missions are to be a platform for dialogue with regulators and other stakeholders, actively and tangibly promote the FinTech sector in Belgium and Belgian FinTechs abroad, and share the experience within and outside the community. We organise a lot of events and support the development of digital finance through our FIRe Innovation Hub.
Asset Servicing Times is the go-to industry resource for free news, views and opinion on securities services and asset servicing. The fortnightly publication and accompanying website—the only free-to-read asset servicing resources around—keep you abreast of everything to do with custody, fund administration and fintech in easy-to-digest issues that inform, educate and explain, at no cost to you. The website also provides the latest information on asset servicing events around the world, and advertises the key jobs available in this industry as they become available.
Best Execution – where the buyside and sellside meet Best Execution’s quarterly magazine, daily online news and regular e-mail newsletters examine the impact of regulation, new market participants and new technologies on all asset classes (equities, fixed income, derivatives and FX) from pre-trade to post-trade and beyond. One of the consequences of regulation has been the changing dynamic of buyside-sellside interactions and Best Execution is now broadening its remit with Broker Review to examine the true cost of services provided by brokers to their clients. This will not only cover execution and research, but also scrutinise the shift towards sustainability with the increasing importance of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in investment strategy. Best Execution acts as a bridge between the buyside and the sellside, shining a light on their changing relationship and examining the evolution of the global securities markets, but never forgetting that it is not just technology, but people who are needed to hone that competitive edge. www.bestexecution.net
For industry professionals in securities finance and collateral management, getting beyond the hype and understanding how news events and regulatory announcements will affect their business can be a challenge. Finadium News & Opinion, publishing web-based news and regulatory analysis at least four days a week, provides a valuable resource. Finadium offers independent thinking in a concise, easy to read format designed for thousands of busy industry professionals on the buy-side and sell-side, at regulators, market infrastructure and technology firms.
Financial IT is a digital platform for multimedia and editorial content, rankings and overviews of major industry events. Financial IT magazine is published throughout the year in digital form. Financial IT magazine is available in print form at major trade events through our media partnerships. We believe that our competitive edge comes from our established relationships with financial IT companies and institutions, the breadth of the solutions described and the quality of content. Financial IT provides a detailed map of the everchanging space where the IT provider sector meets the broadly defined financial services sector.
FinTech Futures is a premier digital publishing platform and the definitive source of news and analysis for the worldwide fintech community. We are the go-to, trusted resource for industry buyers, sellers, developers, integrators, regulators, and other specialists across the sector, big and small. Our website attracts over 100,000 visitors per month with over 200,000 page views and our daily newsletter is delivered to over 25,000 key decision-makers in the financial services and technology sectors. The brand is active across the key B2B social media platforms, with over 79,000 followers on Twitter @FinTech_Futures and over 75,000 followers on LinkedIn. FinTech Futures also publishes The Banking Technology magazine, a print and online publication founded in London in 1983. The magazine, published ten times a year, is a trusted brand for fintech professionals an enjoys a worldwide distribution. FinTech Futures also holds industry events including the annual Banking Tech Awards and Banking Tech Awards USA, which recognises the top achievers and innovators within the banking technology community, and the annual PayTech Awards, which celebrates excellence and innovation in the payments industry.
Talking about bonds starts at the DESK The DESK provides buy-side traders and their counterparts with precise detail on the macro-drivers, events and plans that are shaping liquidity and price discovery in fixed income markets. The DESK’s quarterly magazine, daily news, weekly newsletters and social media feeds give us a constant flow of information to the market, blending a mix of exclusive stories, in-depth trader profiles and technical analysis of trading across the cash and derivatives’ fixed income markets. The DESK is trusted by bond traders to be the best information on market structure, data and trade execution. Using a unique model of feedback via monthly off-the-record briefings and quarterly quantitative research, we help buy-side traders to navigate the evolving fixed income markets and sell-side traders to better support their clients. Our readers predominantly come from the developed financial market centres of Europe and North America, but our combination of print and digital gives The DESK a global reach. www.fi-desk.com
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Head of the BIS Innovation Hub, Bank for International Settlements
Head of Unit, European Commission
Chair, European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA)
Director of Public Policy, Credit Suisse
Head of Advisory FIC Client Line, BNP Paribas
Executive Director, Industry Development, JP Morgan
Senior Manager, International Engagement Team, Sector Resilience Division, Prudential Regulation Authority, Bank of England
Senior Vice President, Digital Assets & Financial Markets, Northern Trust
EMEA Head of Regulatory Engagement, Citigroup
Manager Public Policy, Santander
Associate Director, Technology Risk & Resilience, Protiviti
Director, Head of Market Advocacy Europe Securities Services, Deutsche Bank
Chief Revenue Officer, Duco
Associate General Counsel and Director, Bank of America
Senior Advisor, Chair and Non-Exec, Provenance Blockchain Foundation
Director Corporate Public Policy, Banco Santander
Senior Director Group Technology Data, Intesa Sanpaolo
Cyber Policy Lead, Tony Blair Institute for Global Change
Quantum Innovation Sector Lead, National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC)
Chairman, Digital Euro Association (DEA)
Managing Director, Global Co-Head of Digital Assets, TP ICAP
Head of Policy Development and Implementation Unit, European Network Information Security Agency (ENISA)
Director General for Financial Supervision and Regulation, Banca d'Italia
Technical Advisor, FSB Working Group on Cyber Incident Reporting, Bank of England
Head of Market Innovation and Integration, European Central Bank
Economist & Policy Analyst, OECD
Head of Strategy and Product Expansion for Issuers, Fund Managers and Sustainable Finance, Euroclear Group
Securities Markets Unit, DG FISMA
Senior Advisor, Public Policy and Government Affairs, BNY Mellon
Managing Director, Global FX, Technology and Operations and Policy Divisions, GFMA and AFME
Head Domestic Custody & TR Operations, SIX
Digital Public Policy Director, Santander
Global Head of Regulatory Consulting, Delta Capita
Chief Executive Officer, Centre for European Policy Studies
Managing Director, Data and Analytics, Protiviti
Fellow, Centre for Alternative Finance, University of Cambridge
Partner, Herbert Smith Freehills
Director, Head of Asset Servicing Product Development, Clearstream
Head of Innovation Management, AXA Investment Managers
Chief Growth Officer, CLS Group
Market Policy and Strategy Director, Citi Securities Services
MD, Global Head of FX & Commodities Partnerships & Propositions, HSBC
Chief Executive, Montis Group
Managing Director, Global Head of Network Management, Bank of America and
Chair, Post Trade Board, AFME
Managing Director, Goldman Sachs
ITP Product Management & Industry Relations, DTCC
Head of ESG data for Sustainability Data and Technology, Deutsche Bank
Deputy Head of Unit, DG for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union, European Commission
Executive Director, International Head of Asset Services, Product Management, Securities Services, J.P. Morgan
Managing Director, Market Advocacy & Business Change, Broadridge
Sustainable Investment Expert, National Bank of Belgium
Senior Post Trade Processing Expert, Murex
Fintech Hub, Bank of England
International CIO, BNY Mellon
Director, Head of Digital Assets, Securities Services Citi
Head of Digital Policy, Barclays
Director, Post Trade and Prime Services, AFME
Senior Innovation Partner, Digital Catapult
Head of Group Strategy, Product Management, and Innovation, Euroclear group
Head of Central Securities Depositories, Euronext
SVP Capital Markets Technology, Endava
Coordinator of the Markets and Post-trading Unit, professor of finance, FSMA, UBI Business School and Antwerp Management School
Policy Officer, European Commission
Managing Director, Head of Capital Markets Membership and Events, AFME
Executive Director, Goldman Sachs
Executive Director of Financial Market Infrastructure, Bank of England
MD, Head of Market Structure & Innovation, ING Bank
Product Manager – Asset Servicing global product and Regulatory Solutions, BNP Paribas
Director, Head of Business Development & Commercialisation Digital Securities Services, Clearstream
Head of Product for Tokenised assets, Swift