Securities Operations: A Guide to Trade and Position Management

Foreword

A career in securities operations has long required years of apprenticeship training. This less visible, but critical segment of the global capital markets, has been characterized by its own culture, lexicon and ideosyncracies. Securities operations professionals have typically spent years developing an understanding of individual product operations, a variety of systems and processing environments, and a multitude of laws and regulations. For those who are close to this profession, including myself, the challenges and complexities have increased significantly over the past few years.

For all of capital markets, but particularly the securities operations component of the overall process, this past decade has been one of significant change. Capital flows and their associated transaction volumes have increased substantially, particularly cross-border, demanding innovative processing solutions. The financial engineering creativity of the industry has produced a steady stream of new products with their attendant back office demands. The industry has also witnessed a surge of consolidation resulting in the creation of very large financial institutions with unique global operations issues. Many of these consolidated firms also reflect the convergence of banking, capital markets, insurance and related financial services businesses creating a new class of senior operations managers. This consolidation has also affected the infrastructure of securities processing, resulting in ...