Waters Wavelength

This week’s guest is Brian Bejile, cofounder & CEO, Octaura 0:00-7:20: Anthony Malakian and Rebecca Natale, Europe Editor for WatersTechnology, complain for seven minutes about poor customer service and artificial intelligence. 7:20-35:23: Brian Bejile and Nyela Graham, senior reporter at WatersTechnology, have an actual informative discussion—as opposed to Tony and Reb’s diatribes—about the origins of Octaura, modernization of the credit markets, the platform provider’s move into the collateralized loan obligation (CLO) space, and the need for more data and analytics on the buy side.

This week, Reb and Nyela discuss BNY’s digital workers and what the use of AI in society signals for the future.

This week, Riad Chowdhury, head of Asia-Pacific, and Dan Burke, global head of emerging markets at MarketAxess, join to discuss block trading in fixed income. Plus Reb discusses her recent article about Cusip and updates on the class action lawsuit moving through the courts. 00:00 Reb and Tony discuss recent reporting around Cusip and updates on the class action lawsuit 12:30 Riad Chowdhury, head of Asia-Pacific, and Dan Burke, global head of emerging markets at MarketAxess, join the podcast 14:40 Block trading in fixed income vs. equities 20:20 Drivers for larger-sized trades 23:00 MarketAxess’s Targeted RFQ 31:00 Challenges for dealers 33:00 Learnings from the equities world 39:00 Trends in bid/ask spreads for EM hard-currency debt 44:20 AI model for Targeted RFQ

This week, Reb, Nyela, and Shen discuss concerns around air travel and notable cybersecurity incidents. https://www.waterstechnology.com/emerging-technologies/7952488/agentic-ai-takes-center-stage-bank-tech-projects-new-funding-rounds-and-more?cx_artPos=1&cx_testId=4&cx_testVariant=cx_1#cxrecs_s 0:00 – Reb, Nyela, and Shen talk about Reb’s flight back from New York 10:30 – They discuss two stories from our last Waters Cooler about the previous hacks on the SEC’s Edgar database and Ion

This week, Par Cassells joins Nyela to discuss shorter settlement cycles and the role of vendors in the transition. 0:00 – Tony and Nyela talk highlights from the Tech & Data in Financial Markets (TDFM) conference 7:00 – Par Cassells, chief client officer at AccessFintech, joins Nyela on the podcast 9:00 – Par’s takeaways from North America’s move to T+1 13:00 – The upcoming moves to T+1 in the EU and UK 17:00 – T+0 margin vs. T+0 settlement 20:30 – Difference between the transitions 24:00 – Vendors’ role in the T+1 transition

This week, Tradeweb’s Chris Bruner joins the podcast to discuss digital assets and fixed income. 0:00 – Reb is back in NYC! 6:30 – Chris Bruner, chief product officer at Tradeweb, joins Nyela on the podcast 13:30 – Tradeweb’s history with blockchain 18:40 – Gauging client reception to digital assets 28:50 – Upcoming regulatory headwinds

Tony and Shen discuss Bloomberg’s addition to IB chat, common threads in our Voice of the CTO series, and op resiliency. Our Bloomberg story: https://www.waterstechnology.com/data-management/7952434/bloomberg%E2%80%99s-chatbots-streamline-external-data-sharing-otc-trading Our Voice of the CTO series: https://www.waterstechnology.com/topics/voice-of-the-cto

This week, Hamilton Lane's Griff Norville joins to discuss how the asset manager is tackling private markets data. 0:00 – Eliot joins Tony on the podcast 3:10 – Griff Norville, head of technology solutions at Hamilton Lane, joins the podcast 4:40 – Private markets data extraction 6:10 – Data storage issues 8:40 – Tackling standardization 11:00 – The dual role of being an asset manager and a data provider 15:40 – Are attitudes changing around this data? 20:00 – The expanding tech landscape

This week, Bitdefender’s Adrian Coleșa and Transilvania Quantum’s Sorin Boloș join to discuss security vulnerabilities in quantum computing 0:00 – Tony is back! 3:30 – Adrian Coleșa, Senior Security Researcher at Bitdefender, and Sorin Boloș, quantum software engineer at Transilvania Quantum, join the podcast 8:00 – How the partnership between Bitdefender and Transilvania Quantum began 12:00 – Research into QC as a potential target 14:00 – Why attack a QC 19:30 – Who bears the onus 23:30 – Classical and QC vulnerabilities 32:30 – What is a quantum antivirus

This week, Toby Glaysher, chairman at Finbourne Technology, joins the podcast to discuss the asset servicing industry. 0:00 – Reb and Shen rant about using ChatGPT for academic projects 12:00 – Toby Glaysher from Finbourne joins the podcast and gives an overview of his 36 years of experience in the asset servicing business 16:30 – Fund accounting is a good introduction to the investment lifecycle 19:00 – A potential zero fund accountant environment 23:00 – The impact tariffs have on asset servicing firms 27:30 – The potential solution 30:30 – There are too many participants 35:30 – 95% of the work is in executing 39:30 – Reducing the cost of investing

This week, Reb, Nyela, and Shen talk about unimaginative company names and then address some challenges in the loans market. 0:00 – Reb goes on a rant about company names 9:00 – They discuss the challenges in the loans market 14:00 – Identifiers are so esoteric

Bertie Haskins, executive director and head of data for Apac and Middle East at Capco, joins to discuss the challenges of commercializing data. 0:00 – Reb and Shen discuss Reb’s potential as the next host 3:00 – Bertie Haskins from Capco joins the podcast 5:30 – Four key areas around commercializing data 12:30 – Is the problem with how firms define the CDO role 16:00 – Strategies to commercialize data 19:30 – Understanding the data roadmap 24:00 – Steps to create new data products 26:30 – Sometimes, a simple option might be the best

This week, Jon Hodges, head of trading and asset services for Apac at FIS Global, joins the podcast to talk about how firms in Asia-Pacific approach AI and data. 0:00 – Tony and Shen talk about having faith in humanity 9:30 – Jon Hodges, head of trading and asset services for Apac at FIS Global, joins and gives an overview of how he started his career in a structured credit hedge fund 13:00 – Lessons for start-ups 17:00 – Observations from tariffs 21:30 – How Asia-Pacific firms are ahead in adopting AI 24:00 – Data’s importance 27:30 – Snowflake’s dominance in the capital markets 29:00 – Asia vs. US and Europe 31:30 – FIS is investing more in AI

Tony, Reb, and Nyela talk about tariffs (not really), journalism (sorta), and pop culture (mostly).

Brian Hyndman, CEO and president at Blue Ocean Technologies, joins to discuss overnight trading 0:00 – Nyela and Reb talk about Reb’s start at WatersTechnology 5:00 – Brian joins the podcast and walks through his background and the beginnings of Blue Ocean ATS 8:00 – How market data works for BOATS 9:00 – Obstacles for exchanges entering the overnight space 15:00 – Moving to MEMX Technologies’ platform 17:00 – Competition from other ATSs 20:00 – The growth of real-time information and its impact on trading 21:00 – Misunderstandings about overnight trading 22:30 – Roadmap for 2025

This week, SigTech’s CEO Bin Ren joins Eliot to discuss GenAI’s progress since ChatGPT’s emergence in 2022, agentic AI, and challenges with regulating AI. 0:00 – Wei-Shen and Tony discuss their bar trivia adventures 5:30 – Bin Ren, CEO of SigTech, joins Eliot on the podcast 7:00 – Agentic AI 10:30 – Next steps in GenAI 15:00 – Is AI impossible to regulate? 23:30 – The understanding gap between tech and finance teams

This week, Tony and Nyela discuss Nyela's week spent in Boca Raton, Florida covering the FIA Boca conference as well as the current developments around 24/7 trading in US equity markets. 0:00- Tony and Nyela discuss the beginning of baseball season in the United States 3:25- They discuss what happened last week at FIA Boca

Caesar, who previously spent 15 years at Google, joins to discuss Arta’s goal of putting a private banker in everyone’s pockets. 0:00 – Reb and Shen talk about cat punches and Reb’s profile on CME’s Terry Duffy https://www.waterstechnology.com/trading-tech/7952311/exclusive-terry-duffy-on-cmes-cloud-future-takeover-targets-and-candy 7:00 – Caesar Sengupta, co-founder and CEO of Arta Finance, joins Wei-Shen on the podcast 10:00 – Big Tech’s challenges in trying to get deep into finance and the capital markets 19:30 – Why it’s hard for traditional finance players to create new user experiences 22:00 – Arta’s use of AI and application of agentic AI 28:00 – How Arta is different from robo advisors 30:30 – Partnerships with banks 32:30 – Arta’s focus in the next few months 34:00 – Google connections

This week, Tony and Nyela discuss FactSet’s recent acquisition of LiquidityBook and what it could signal for trading technology. https://www.waterstechnology.com/trading-tech/7952274/factset-liquiditybook-the-buy-side-oms-space-continues-to-shrink 0:00 – Tony and Nyela discuss the year's Best Picture Oscar winner 3:30 – They discuss the evolution of the OMS space

Reb is back on the podcast to talk about her trip to Reykjavik, as well as two market data reports released this month. 0:00 – Reb talks about her travels to Iceland 14: 00 – They discuss market data fees