We’re all truly ‘back to school’ now – Q4 client campaigns are in full swing, and awards season begins with many clients winning or being shortlisted for industry awards. Our team has already delivered a storytelling and pitch coaching workshop for JP Morgan’s Glasgow-based Fintech Forward Accelerator Programme, supported by EY, and we have signed up three new clients keen to get going.
What’s more, we’ve begun delivering our training programme for the Investment Association, with three courses being offered to their illustrious membership, across soft skills, leadership bootcamps, and conference panel and stage mastery.
This month, we also decided to focus our attention on Global Digital Asset regulation in more detail. This is prompted by the FCA consultation on regulating UK cryptoasset activities, global regulatory developments, and the most recent whitepaper from our client ClearToken, which makes the case for a Central Securities Depository (CSD) for Digital Assets.
As ever, we are always keen to hear and share what industry leaders and entrepreneurs care about on their growth and transformation journeys. Here are 10 key themes that are top-of-mind for CEOs right now, shared by our CEO, Julia Streets, MBE.
Next week we’ll be heading to Sibos. We’ll be there alongside clients, and Julia Streets will be moderating various discussions and closing the Swift Innotribe event programme. If you are there, please do connect with us on the ground.
Kind regards,
Sybille Mueller, Director
From London to New York, the EU and APAC, the race to regulate digital assets is heating up. We break down the strategic moves being made by global financial regulators as they vie for dominance in the new digital economy, with the UK determined to solidify its reputation as a forward-thinking financial hub at the forefront of this digital revolution. Discover who’s leading the charge.
How do growth CEOs maintain a laser focus on deal value while also designing roadmaps for growth, navigating complexities and seizing opportunities effectively? Julia Streets’ 10 observations dive into the specifics, from mastering storytelling that resonates with both investors and customers to the nuances of cultivating next-gen talent. This blog moves beyond the headlines to explore the strategic and operational rigour required for genuine, enterprise-wide transformation.
KCx partners with BMLL to roll out new trading system
KCx, the execution services division of independent European broker Kepler Cheuvreux, accelerated the development of its trading technology stack by using historical data from client BMLL to build a new smart order router. Kepler Cheuvreux and BMLL talked to Markets Media about their collaboration.
The case for a Central Securities Depository (CSD) for digital assets
The future of settlement finality is fundamental to the evolution of digital asset markets. And Blockchain’s immutability isn’t the same as legal finality. The second chapter of ClearToken’s latest white paper explores why this gap exposes markets to systemic risk and why a digital CSD is the essential bridge to achieving institutional trust.
Droit adds ‘Explore Mode’ to Adept, its global regulatory decision-making platform
Client Droit, a technology firm at the forefront of computational law and regulation, launched ‘Explore Mode’ to provide institutions with a new way of interacting with the rules both across Droit’s pre-trade products, which enable financial institutions to understand their commercial possibilities and validate readiness to engage, as well as post-trade, for regulatory reporting.
InTick secures £2 million funding for transformative growth
The listed derivatives blocking network, client, InTick secured £2 million in funding from a diverse range of angel investors. This investment follows the company’s successful launch in October 2024, the strategic appointment of key advisors to its board earlier this year, and the go-live of its listed derivatives block matching platform last month.
The Investment Association partners with Streets Consulting for skills training
The Investment Association, the leading trade body for the UK investment management industry, announced a strategic partnership with Streets Consulting to deliver its professional skills training programme. These courses equip individuals at all career stages to master essential soft skills for personal development and professional growth.
Buy-side investment research spend remains flat despite AUM growth
The recent buy-side survey from Substantive Research shows that asset managers’ investment research spending is no longer rising alongside assets under management (AUM). The report reveals top research providers are consolidating their market share and looks at the future of client-funded research budgets in Europe.
Google’s Gemini AI unveiled its latest integrated capability – AI image generation, which is emerging as a true leader in AI-powered image editing and enhancement. Known as Nano Banana, the new tool is gaining traction via word of mouth and allows users to combine several images into one, add or change details of uploaded images, and even turn low-quality ‘selfies’ into polished corporate headshots. Gemini also now includes the capability to generate video content of up to 8 seconds.
A recent Tom’s Guide article reports that in a head-to-head test of three AI chatbots, Gemini was the overall winner against Claude and Grok. The evaluation, based on seven real-world prompts, highlighted Gemini’s strength in real-time knowledge and creativity, while Claude excelled at writing style and ethical reasoning.
Elon Musk claimed in a post on X that the next iteration of Grok, Grok 5, has a chance to become the first Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) model – AI that can learn and perform any intellectual human task and adapt, matching or even surpassing human cognitive abilities.
Albania has appointed ‘the world’s first AI-made minister’. Named ‘Diella’, the Albanian word for ‘sunshine’, the AI will take charge of public procurement. Albania’s Prime Minister, Edi Rama, said that it meant government tender decisions would be taken out of the traditional ministries, making the tender process “100% incorruptible”.
In this instalment of #StreetsTalksTo, our CEO, Julia Streets, MBE, talks to Craig Butterworth, Chief Commercial Officer, of Droit. They discuss how a centralised decision engine can solve major compliance challenges for financial institutions, such as siloed controls and the risk of outdated, hard-coded rules. The key is to create a single source of truth for regulatory decisions.
In this #StreetsTalksTo episode, we talk to James Goater, Founder and CEO, and Sarah Timms, Co-Founder and CPTO, of InTick. This conversation provides a deep dive into how InTick is leveraging technology and market expertise to redefine block trading, making it easier and more efficient to transact block sizes, and ultimately increasing overall market activity.
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