The Pandemic and the acceleration of digital assets innovation & adoption

Digital adoption and innovation have taken a quantum leap at both the organisational and industry level. Both retail and institutional investors have moved dramatically towards online channels, and this has meant that businesses have had to adapt. The pandemic has only necessitated digital transformation, accelerating innovation in the digital assets space and increased adoption rates. Cryptocurrency trading is growing exponentially, and institutional firms seeking Alpha are increasingly prioritising Crypto trading.

In a contactless world, the vast majority of interactions with customers and employees must take place virtually. With rare exceptions, operating digitally is the only way to ensure business continuity and longevity. Although this mandate is nothing new, it has been brought into sharp focus. Prior to the pandemic, a paradigm shift towards digitisation of the economy was already underway. Singapore continues to emerge as a key cryptocurrency hub in Asia with its positive attitude towards cryptocurrencies and blockchain. Compared to many other APAC countries, Singapore has taken a more proactive approach to cryptocurrencies, with the 2021 Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) Payment Services (PS) Act providing a stable regulatory licensing and operating framework.

Biden Pushes For Cryptocurrency Framework

Ganesh Iyer, trading and network services expert, IPC, said: “Is Biden beckoning the beginning of the end for ‘wild west’ crypto markets? More regulation of digital assets has implications for how institutions engage with the burgeoning asset class. Quant-driven hedge funds running arbitrage and quant strategies typically shine in more volatile and unstructured markets, capitalising on their superior access to market data. Whatever happens with crypto regulation, these fund managers need to squeeze out every opportunity by utilising networks that provide fast and unrestricted access to the major crypto exchanges. Only time will tell how and when this market will mature. Until that point there is an opportunity now for hedge funds to utilise ultra-low latency networks to make the most of volatile, compliance-light and liquid crypto markets.”

Biden signs executive order for regulation on digital assets

Commenting on the order, Ganesh Iyer, chief marketing and strategy officer at IPC Systems, says: “Is Biden beckoning the beginning of the end for ‘wild west’ crypto markets? More regulation of digital assets has implications for how institutions engage with the burgeoning asset class.

He adds: “Whatever happens with crypto regulation, these fund managers need to squeeze out every opportunity by utilising networks that provide fast and unrestricted access to the major crypto exchanges. Only time will tell how and when this market will mature. Until that point there is an opportunity now for hedge funds to utilise ultra-low latency networks to make the most of volatile, compliance-light and liquid crypto markets.”

IPC Announces Strategic Partnership with Custodia Technology

IPC, a leading provider of secure, compliant communications and multi-cloud connectivity solutions for the global financial markets and trading community, today announced a strategic partnership with Custodia Technology, an independent global expert in financial compliance providing full end-to-end compliance management solutions for both on-premise and cloud environments in more than 100 countries.

As a result of this partnership, clients will have access to the combined ability of multiple voice recording integrations – Unigy®, Microsoft Teams, traditional PBX (Avaya, Cisco, amongst others), and Zoom platforms. With simple, rapid deployment and a true SaaS commercial model, Custodia’s Compliance Cloud One (CC1) is implemented in a single cloud instance, creating a trustworthy purpose-built, global cloud voice recording platform.

“In partnership with Custodia, IPC is thrilled to be bringing these enhanced capabilities in voice and recording to our clients,” said David Brown, Chief Commercial Officer at IPC. “The team at IPC remains dedicated to providing our clients with best-in-breed services and solutions addressing the increased complexity and growing needs of the industry. We believe the collaboration with Custodia further supplements our offering providing greater flexibility to the marketplace.”

This SaaS offering will provide clients with numerous benefits including, but not limited to, the following:

  • Multi-Modality: Minimizes platforms and provides significant cost savings for management
  • A Feature-Rich Portal: Accessible for case management, legal hold, and labeling
  • Evergreen Design: Eliminates the costly need for upgrades and patch management
  • Data Lake: Provides centralized access to third-party surveillance systems

“On behalf of the entire team at Custodia, we are very much looking forward to joining forces with IPC to deliver this suite of advanced capabilities to clients”, said Chris Hartley, CEO at Custodia. “This cutting-edge SaaS platform will up level current market offerings in voice and recording, enabling clients to keep up with the rapidly evolving demands of the industry.”

About Custodia Technology

Custodia provides full end-to-end solutions for the compliance estate and, in addition to independently supporting best-in-class vendor technologies, it provides its own financial sector software solutions, with a teamed approach to support and training, covering more than 100 countries. Learn more about Custodia at https://custodiatechnology.com.

Why crypto regulation must not kill the goose that laid the golden coin

Is anyone else feeling bogged down with the copious amount of talk around regulating cryptocurrency markets? Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that central bankers and regulators are attempting to police something that is the direct opponent of how traditional markets have historically been governed.

The trading of crypto, by definition, means that personal data is recorded and stored on multiple computers across numerous locations around the world, as opposed to one central location. This in turn means that no one government or regulator controls the recording or storage of information. Therefore, instead of the Internal Revenue Service or Financial Conduct Authority controlling the information, any changes to data go through a consensus process that no one person — let alone a regulator or government — has control over.

There will always be the push-pull of those who push for more regulation, and those who advocate less. However, when the digitisation of assets becomes more enshrined in the machinery of capital markets, hedge fund managers will at some point have to accept regulation coming into crypto.

 

IPC Partners with Drebbel to Bolster Presence in Key Continental European Markets

 IPC, a leading provider of secure, compliant communications and multi-cloud connectivity solutions for the global financial markets and trading community, today announced its decision to onboard Amsterdam, Brussels and Frankfurt based Drebbel s.r.o. as the sales channel for IPC’s Connexus® suite of products in several important continental European markets.

“Drebbel has an impressive track record of selling financial cloud, hosting and compute-on-demand solutions across continental Europe, and is recognized by its clients as a reliable and trustworthy gateway to global technology firms like IPC,” commented Alex Walker, Director of Sales Network Services EMEA, IPC. “Their local presence in different European financial centers, their personal contacts with decision makers and the professional network of each of their regional representatives are a huge asset for IPC. This will allow us to efficiently focus our sales and marketing efforts and accelerate the growth of our footprint in Europe.”

Drebbel is an end-to-end fintech sales company that provides clients with prospection, sales and long-term account management. IPC has identified a unique window of opportunity to aggressively expand its presence in Europe with products that address the rapidly evolving financial marketplace, such as digital asset exchanges, surveillance platforms, and more, while continuing to support established participants in the trading community.

“We welcome the addition of IPC’s industry-leading trading technology and cloud services to our portfolio,” stated Willem Lambrechts, Founder of Drebbel. “The Connexus suite of products addresses all different aspects of mission-critical, secure hosting and connectivity, regardless of the size of the enterprise being served. IPC provides the market-leading infrastructure for FinTech start-ups, as well as for Tier 1 banks, institutional investors and trading firms. Their approach is genuinely customer-centric, and uniquely and exclusively focused on the financial services sector.”

IPC’s award-winning Connexus® Cloud platform is an unparalleled multi-cloud platform for the global financial markets, an ecosystem that interconnects more than 7,000 diverse capital market participants across 750 cities in over 60 countries. The world’s top financial institutions rely on Connexus Cloud for trade execution, order routing, market data delivery, clearing, settlement and accessing trade lifecycle services.

About IPC

IPC is a technology and service leader powering the global financial markets. We help clients anticipate change and solve problems, setting the standard with industry expertise, exceptional service and comprehensive technology. With a customer-first mentality, IPC brings together one of the largest and most diverse global financial ecosystems spanning all asset classes and market participants. As the enabler of this ecosystem, IPC empowers the community to interact, transact and react to market changes and challenges, and collaborates with its customers to help make them secure, productive, compliant and connected. Visit ipc.com and follow us on Linkedin and Twitter (@IPC_Systems_Inc).

About Drebbel

Drebbel is an international technology broker, conducting end-to-end sales activities, from market research to long-term account management. Its team of financial industry experts has years of experience in all areas of wholesale financial markets. Drebbel’s client base comprises fintech start-ups and scale-ups as well as large, established corporates on 3 continents.

For more information, please visit https://www.drebbel.eu or follow us on  LinkedIn 

 

Disaster Recovery in Unpredictable Times: An Expert Q&A

The coronavirus pandemic made clear the need for disaster recovery plans and solutions for virtually every industry, but even before the pandemic, remote and mobile workforces were clearly the direction almost every industry was headed. This decentralization of the workforce increases the need for planning and preparation for a broad range of contingencies because even if a business interruption is localized geographically, it could still have ripple effects throughout the entire organization. Tim Carmody, Chief Technology Officer, IPC, discusses how, with respect to financial services specifically, IPC is seeing an important shift in mindset within the financial markets: traders and other industry participants know now they can reliably and resiliently thrive with a mobile workforce, albeit by smartly leveraging cloud computing so that if and when disaster does strike again, their business will be prepared.

Opportunities in a fractured European marketplace

Euronext’s recent announcement of its intended move from the Basildon data centre, in the UK, to Bergamo in Italy, is making waves amongst equity market participants. Euronext’s decision is primarily due to Brexit considerations, such as the post-Brexit shift in European share trading from London to Amsterdam. For the exchange operator, it therefore makes sense to consolidate its operations in a single, EU based data centre – and keeps other key stakeholders, such as EU regulators, happy as well.

IPC’s Robert Santella, wins “Best CEO” in the 2021 Comparably Awards

IPC, a leading provider of secure, compliant communications and multi-cloud connectivity solutions for the global financial markets, today announced that CEO, Robert Santella, has won Comparably’s 2021 global survey for Best CEO.

This recognition was determined based on anonymous employee feedback on Comparably.com over the past 12 months. These awards rank the top 50 best CEOs for large companies, and the top 50 best for small and midsize companies. To get these results, Comparably fielded over 10 million anonymous employee ratings from over 50,000 companies. See full ranking list here.

“I am honored to accept this award on behalf of the entire IPC team, as it reflects a unified, creative and positive company culture. We are continuously cultivating opportunities for growth, development and skill enhancement, to enable our employees to reach their maximum potential as well as putting a focus on bringing in seasoned talent with highly skilled, transferable experience.”
Commented Santella.

 

As we look forward to a successful 2022, we at IPC, appreciate the confident leadership and opportunities given by our CEO to continue having an impactful future together!

 

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