Outlook 2016: Lloyd Altman, Risk Focus

Lloyd Altman, global head of Validate.Trade at Risk Focus.

What were the major themes of your business in 2015?

The biggest theme for Risk Focus in 2015 was the emergence of what we consider to be the second wave of regulatory compliance, with regulators pressuring firms to improve the accuracy of their transaction reports or risk being fined. This has led banks and industry utilities like the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.(DTCC) to start using our Validate.Trade software in earnest. Starting with European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) Level 2 for EMIR reporting, our client base was able to proactively incorporate a robust set of data quality rules as part of their development and testing cycle, taking advantage of our “pre-UAT” release months ahead of schedule.

What are your expectations for 2016?

In 2016 the amount of simultaneous regulatory change will continue to snowball. We will be putting a heavy focus on helping firms get ahead of several impending regulatory reporting deadlines.

Highlights include:

1. The Securities and Exchange Commission's Regulation SBSR will go all the way from spec to implementation, and we will start helping by offering a managed service that will enable clients to meet the requirement to backload all of their eligible historical trades, followed by Validate.Trade rules for reporting live trades.
2. In the EU we will have an early version of the new ESMA RTS for EMIR reporting, which will increase the number of data fields by 50% and add new requirements for existing fields.
3. We will also keep our foot on the gas pedal developing modules to help firms continue to prepare for MiFID II reporting.
4. The Monetary Authority of Singapore will be adding equities and commodities as part of the Phase III reporting requirements.
5. The DTCC Global Trade Repository (GTR) will also be adding new Canadian provinces and additional asset classes for Hong Kong Monetary Authority reporting.