Financial Trading Conferences and Events in London

What are some of the trends in technology driven financial trading? We have put together a list of must attend events and conferences in London during 2016 for traders who are planning to stay up-to-date with new technologies and stay competitive in this ever-changing environment. From lending to cashless payments and digital currencies Fintech has been a thorn in the side of the banking industry and continues to do so. Institutional traders in the financial markets have become increasingly wary of the growing retail trading volumes which now play a significant proportion of global trades.

How human traders will beat the machines?

Here is a very intriguing article on the FT.com about How human traders will beat the machines. What do you think? Will the advancement of computer-driven trading systems sow the seeds of their eventual obsolescence? Miles Johnson starts a great discussion about how investment firms race to create a thinking, trading computer but concludes that the truly skilled fund manager has no need to worry…..yet. This is a great time to be in the heart of the financial capital, the City of London, and if you would like to keep up-to-date with new financial trading technologies then take a look at the list of Financial Trading Events and Conferences that are happening in London this year.

London Fintech Capital of Europe

London’s FinTech investment boom was emphasised one more time by Accenture’s The Future of Fintech and Banking report in last March. Investment across the globe trebled from $928m in 2008 to a staggering $2.97bn in 2013, more than four times the rate of overall VC investment. The UK, and London in particular, has seen deal volume grow at an annualised rate of 74%, compared to 27% globally and 13% in Silicon Valley. London, once again is recognised as the FinTech Capital of Europe.

Financial Trading Conferences and Events of 2016 in London

February 11, 2016

MiFID II is officially delayed by EU once again

EU has once again delayed the implementation of MiFID II to 3rd of January 2018 after ‘exceptional technical challenges’.

This is not the first time MiFID II has been delayed as the dreaded EU directive has many moving parts (collecting data from 300 trading venues and up to 15 million financial instruments) and has already changed directions many times.

Given the ongoing changes in the regulatory environment the team at iPushPull strongly believe that an investment in technology is more important than ever in order to help both research producers and consumers to deliver, track and monitor content.

Bloomberg’s MiFID II event “Spotlight on Independent Research”

Recently, we attended Bloomberg’s MiFID II event “Spotlight on Independent Research”. The main highlight of the Bloomberg Independent Research event was a keynote speech by Sandy Bragg, Principal of Integrity Research Associates, who was reporting the results of his recent survey on research pricing.

Integrity Research Pricing Study – independent research pricing and fee structures results:

Nearly 50% of firms showed revenues of less than $1mln in 2014. Integrity Research showed that the smaller the research producer the more likely pricing is pre-determined either fixed, by usage, or by product and because smaller firms have smaller revenues they have a preference and a need for cash payments.
Larger firms (in this case the 20% of those surveyed that had annual revenues of more than $10mln) have a preference for more lucrative fee structures that are based on opaque CSA’s. Essentially the larger firms rely on what the research consumer (traders/fund managers) offer to pay.

The independent research environment is closely followed as the more traders and fund managers are forced to pay for research that they consume, the more they will be forced to think about their research requirements.

Strategy consultancy firm Stratevolve estimate that 95% of electronically delivered research is not read, which means there is a lot of research out there that is surplus to requirement! This means research departments across the board are in the firing line.

According to the FT, Fund managers that have already stopped paying for research through commissions and pay research producers directly such as Baillie Gifford, Aberdeen Asset Management and Stewart Investors have all seen research costs fall.

This is not a good environment to be a research analyst but one silver lining in the cloud maybe that research analysts go independent and create a bigger market place for research which is why the last year has seen a few new research exchanges appear, with the likes of Research Pool, ERIC and Research Exchange looking to create an exchange of research.

With that in mind here is one Independent Research Conference you do not want to miss:

Global Independent Research Conference London on March 16, 2016 will help to create a community between buy-side participants and independent research providers. This conference is for the buy-side community including Portfolio Managers, Chief Investment Officers, Fund Managers, Strategists, Analysts and Chief Economists great way to get an insight into the state of the economy around the world for your investment decisions.

iPushPull for Research Distribution

To learn more about how research producers can track, monitor and deliver their research please visit iPushPull for Research Distribution

January 26, 2016January 27, 2016

MiFID II Research Unbundling: Find out what’s next

The iPushPull team is heading over to Bloomberg’s London office on 27th January for their MiFID II: Spotlight on Independent Research event. MiFID II (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive) is new European legislation intended to improve the functioning of financial markets after the global financial crisis and to strengthen investor protection. The aspect of MiFID II that interests us most is the financial research unbundling.

Until now, when banks provided research information to institutional investors such as pension funds and asset managers, the cost of that research was included (or bundled) in the trading commissions charged by the banks and brokers they trade with. This practice generated incentives for these investors to trade exclusively with particular institutions, rather than seeking better deals elsewhere or investigating alternative assets to invest in. In the new world, pension funds and asset managers will be responsible for monitoring their use of research, recording how much they are spending on it and reporting this information to both their investors and the regulator.

A MiFID II Primer

MiFID II is a rather dry subject to research but its effects on the financial markets will be far-reaching and many institutions are unprepared. For the most thorough and reliable information, head to the Financial Conduct Authority’s website. This covers all the MiFID II proposals, not just those affecting research providers and consumers, and has guides to what firms will need to do to ensure their business functions will be compliant with the legislation. It’s a lengthy read, so for those interested purely in research unbundling, TABB Forum has published a handy digest of the proposals.

MiFID II Research Unbundling Delays and Uncertainty

MiFID II was supposed to be implemented in 2017, but because of the size and scope of the proposed regulations a delay until January 2018 is widely expected. However, the EU authorities are continuing to stall on the detail of the proposals and the confirmation the new implementation date. A leaked draft of the proposals even suggested that payment for research through commissions will continue to be permitted. The continuing delay and uncertainty is making life extremely difficult for affected firms, who will have to scramble to make the major changes required across their business functions, from client services to IT and HR systems.

This week’s event at Bloomberg focusses on the effects of MiFID II on independent providers of financial research. At iPushPull, we’re helping these publishers (and their subscribers) get ready for the changes with our secure, monitored and access-controlled document distribution platform. It should be a stimulating morning.

January 22, 2016February 9, 2018

FinTech Conferences and Events in London – Best of 2016

With start-up friendly regulation, access to capital and a dynamic and innovative workforce London’s FinTech scene is stronger than ever, easily fending off claims of being just another tech bubble.

Over the last 5 years only 19 UK tech firms have raised at least $100 mln however this will soon change with London still ahead of the rest of the world and hot on the heels of our transatlantic cousins in the US. With the ‘Silicon roundabout’ thriving, helped in part by its proximity to the City, London is one of the FinTech hotspots of the world where ideas, vision and backing mean that financial technology is pushed further and goalposts constantly move.

The FinTech industry, including P2P lending, personal finance, cutting edge payment mechanisms, pay per use insurance, bitcoins, etc…, will continue to grow with London Mayor Boris Johnson and UK chancellor George Osborne making it part of the government manifesto. iPushPull has benefited from such government support winning two InnovateUK Smart Grants supporting research and development in mobile security and advanced access control.

Looking ahead to 2016 you do not want to miss out on business and networking opportunities that are happening all over London at the major FinTech conferences and events. We have compiled a list of the key events below;

FinTech Events in January 2016

Here is a table of all the events, do share or embed it in your blog. You can create and embed live Excel spreadsheets in web pages using our Free WordPress Plugin

Also you can check FinTech Event Calendar 2016 for some of the Global FinTech Events during 2016.

Please let us know in the comments if we have missed any London FinTech events and we are happy to add them to this list.

January 12, 2016January 12, 2016

Matthew Cheung, former COO of RANsquawk, joins iPushPull as CEO

London based Financial Technology start-up iPushPull, which delivers secure document distribution and live data sharing between desktop applications, is pleased to announce the appointment of Matthew Cheung as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
Matthew will be responsible for harnessing the innovation of iPushPull’s two founders, Dan Eccleston and David Jones, by defining and implementing tested business strategies to accelerate and sustain growth in sales, product, staff and company awareness.

Matthew Cheung led RANsquawk from start-up to market leader

Matthew joins from RANsquawk, a leading real-time financial news service for traders, which he co-founded in 2005 as the Chief Operations Officer (COO) and where he was responsible for product, sales and business development. Over a decade, Matthew led RANsquawk from start-up to market leader, building a substantial client base including hedge funds, banks, brokers, retail trading platforms and individual traders. Prior to this Matthew worked as an analyst and as a trader at various financial institutions.

Matthew Cheung, CEO, comments: “London is at the spearhead of global financial technology and I am excited to bring my management and financial market experience to a FinTech company that not only has highly innovative products and R&D but has two founders with well-established track records. I am incredibly thrilled to be in a position to further strengthen an already solid team and to advance iPushPull to compete with major players in business and consumer technology.”

Co-founder Dan Eccleston comments: “We’re very excited to welcome Matthew to head up the commercial side of the business. The recent delivery of our desktop-to-cloud data and document sharing platform places iPushPull in a unique position to lead a paradigm shift, not only in financial markets live data sharing and research delivery, but also in the broader business information sharing and collaboration space. As well as sharing our vision for the market Matthew’s track record shows he has the experience to deliver significant revenue growth both through our direct sales and web businesses, exploiting iPushPull’s highly innovative and evolving technologies to the full.”

Matthew holds an MSc Finance from Imperial College and BSc Investment & Financial Risk Management from Cass Business School.

About iPushPull

iPushPull‘s services enable its customers to securely share live data between desktop applications like Microsoft Excel, and distribute documents and research on a fully access-controlled and audited platform. To date, it has won two UK Government grants for its innovative research and development work.

Contact: info@ipushpull.com, +44(0)20-3808-4085 Original PR at PRnewswire

December 21, 2015December 22, 2015

Could MiFID II and Commercial Pressures spell the end for Email Distribution of Financial Research?

In the $3.4bn market for financial research, two powerful forces are driving companies away from email distribution towards comprehensive document sharing solutions. In Europe, the MiFID II regulatory changes will require consumers to monitor and report their use of research. And in the US, research producers are tightening controls to ensure only those people who have paid for access will be able to read their reports.

Updated European Rules for the Financial Research Market (MiFID II)

In Europe, MiFID II regulations will require asset managers and pension funds to disclose exactly how much of their clients’ money they are spending on financial research. Currently, the cost of research is included in the trading fees paid by these organisations to brokers and investment banks. This could lead to conflicts of interest, as a recent Financial Times article pointed out:

[The FCA] has warned that managers could be wooed into executing trades with the brokers who were especially generous in passing on free research, whether or not using that broker represented the best deal for the client.

To minimise the chances of this happening, from 2017 onwards brokers and investment banks will separate, or unbundle, the costs of financial research from their overall trading charges. Asset managers will be required to monitor their use of research, record how much they are spending with each producer and report these costs to the regulator and their customers. The upshot of this is that traditional means of research delivery, typically email, will have to be replaced by robust solutions that allow the consumers of research to accurately track their usage.

Commercial Pressures drive increased controls in the US

These regulations don’t apply in the US, but a move away from email distribution is also happening there, this time being driven by the providers of research: the Investment Banks. Investors there consume almost two-thirds of research via email, according to a recent Bloomberg article. The problem with this approach is that once a PDF has been emailed it can be distributed far beyond its original intended readership, and the original publisher has no means of tracking who is reading it. So investment banks are moving to alternative solutions, as Bloomberg reports:

Bank of America Corp. has started embedding analysts’ reports into web pages, so it can more easily restrict access than with PDF files that are widely shared with people who aren’t paying clients, said Candace Browning, the firm’s head of research. It’s joining rivals Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc. in limiting access, and more plan to follow. The approach also makes it easier to track analysts’ readership and customize products for specific types of clients, according to bank executives and consultants.

These two trends, driven by both the producers and consumers of financial research, are moving the global research market away from email towards document sharing platforms.

At iPushPull we’ve always been dedicated to reducing the amount of email our customers have to deal with, whether through our Excel data sharing service or our PDF distribution platform. They both provide an access controlled and monitored solution for sharing data and documents around companies and between companies and their clients, without the need for emails.

We’ve recently signed our first partnership in the financial research market with FutureTechs, a leading provider of technical analysis to the futures market. The iPushPull document distribution platform lets FuturesTechs easily and securely share their reports with their clients on an access controlled and monitored platform. To try it for yourself, please get in touch or sign up for a free trial today.

November 4, 2015November 5, 2015

FuturesTechs chooses iPushPull for Secure Delivery of Financial Research

iPushPull and FuturesTechs Joint Venture

iPushPull is delighted to announce our new partnership with FuturesTechs, the FCA regulated & award-winning technical research company. FuturesTechs is using iPushPull’s new document distribution feature to securely deliver daily technical analysis research to their clients. This new feature enables iPushPull’s customers to share content with their clients across all devices while letting them control access and monitor document usage.

Clive Lambert, the founder of FuturesTechs, said yesterday:

“We feel the future of Research under the new MiFID II unbundling rules set to come in in 2017 will require secure delivery across all manner of devices, with the ability to audit, control and track usage. With the help of iPushPull, Futurestechs will be well placed to partner with all manner of financial institutions, offering a clean, flexible technology-driven solution to ensure white-label clients can control their brand, reach and pricing; offering our well respected and entirely independent analysis to their clients as a viable, compliant and cost effective alternative to the pre-MiFID II options currently available”.

Dan Eccleston, one of the co-founders of iPushPull, said:

“The way in which information is shared is changing rapidly as enterprises try to keep up with the flexibility of the cloud services now commonplace in consumer markets, while at the same time trying to maintain the all-important control and security businesses require. In addition to these challenges, regulators in financial markets are introducing rules which require businesses to show a far greater degree of transparency than has previously been required, particularly in relation to research materials.

We’re delighted that FuturesTechs has chosen iPushPull as a partner both to help them meet these regulatory challenges and to leverage iPushPull’s unique distribution platform to scale up its ability to distribute information simply and securely”.

For a free trial of FuturesTechs on iPushPull, please click here

About FuturesTechs

FuturesTechs is one of the UK’s leading independent technical analysis companies, founded by Clive Lambert in 2000. It is recognised as a leading research house and the winner of multiple industry awards. Clive is a well-known figure in the technical analysis and Futures industries. He was a board member of the UK Society of Technical Analysts between 2003 and 2011 and is still a regular speaker on their yearly Diploma Course, and is the Author of “Candlestick Charts“, published in 2009. FuturesTechs is FCA registered, registration number 460598.

October 9, 2015November 19, 2018

Embed live Excel spreadsheets in web pages using our WordPress Plugin

We’ve had a great response to the ipushpull WordPress plugin we released back in August! The plugin lets you display live Excel data in your webpages when you’re using desktop Excel. We weren’t entirely sure what people would do with it and it’s been fascinating to find out the kind of uses it’s being put to. Here’s what some of our customers have been doing:

Monetizing the results of data mining and number crunching (using Excel VBA)

Excel VBA lets you build powerful applications in desktop Excel but they just don’t work in Excel Online. ipushpull lets you retain the power and flexibility of your desktop sheets but also lets you see them updating live on the web. The following customer project is still under wraps so unfortunately we can’t be too specific. As soon as it’s been uncloaked we’ll publish full details!

One of our customers in the travel sector uses custom Excel VBA to pull live data from multiple public APIs into their spreadsheet. They then analyse this raw data with bespoke algorithms, and display the resulting information in an ipushpull-enabled sheet. Each time this sheet updates, our customer’s WordPress website updates too. This derived information is so valuable that they are able to charge their own customers for access to it. Building a standalone app to do all this would be expensive and inflexible – ipushpull makes it easy and it’s extremely good value, of course!

Displaying live data from business-critical systems on the web (ERP and CRM)

Many companies still depend on locally-hosted ERP and CRM systems and are reluctant to migrate to web-hosted alternatives because of the expense, disruption and security risk. These kinds of systems generally don’t have native web capabilities. So how can you access data from them when you’re out of the office? Step forward Excel and ipushpull…

Excel lets you import data from any local database directly into your spreadsheets using an ODBC link. One customer, a lighting manufacturer in Pennsylvania, uses this approach to pull purchase order information from their ERP system into Excel. ipushpull publishes this data to a dashboard which is displayed on a monitor in their workshop, so the team always knows when to expect materials. ipushpull makes it easy to link legacy systems to the web and, because you control the content and layout of what you publish, it’s simple to update when your requirements change.

Password Protected Pricelists

ipushpull pages can be public, so everyone can see them, or private, so they can only be viewed by the people you specify. Another customer, a supplier of motorcycle spares, wants to keep some of his price lists private for his favoured customers only. So he updates this list every day and publishes it to an ipushpull page which is encrypted using a password that he’s shared with those customers.

We’ve built some powerful features into ipushpull:

Use it to display live Excel data on your webpages
You don’t need to save the source spreadsheet to update the data
Your content updates automatically – the reader does not need to refresh the browser to get the latest update
You choose the range of cells that gets displayed
You control the update frequency – every few seconds, every hour, every day
Your data can be public or password protected

Now try it for yourself! Sign up for a free trial today!

August 7, 2015January 16, 2019

Display live data from Excel spreadsheets in your WordPress website or blog

ipushpull now lets you embed live, updating data from your desktop Excel spreadsheets in your WordPress website or blog! Whether you’ve a price list that you want to publish every morning, or finance data that changes every few seconds, we’ve made it incredibly easy to send this data directly from your desktop Excel spreadsheet to your site. You don’t need to save the Excel spreadsheet and upload it every time you make a change, and your website visitors don’t need to refresh the page to see updates. With ipushpull it’s automatic, in just a few easy steps.

Live Demo

The blog you’re reading is powered by WordPress, so it’s the ideal place for a demo. Here’s a simulated stock portfolio, updating every few seconds:

This portfolio is being updated by a desktop Excel spreadsheet running at ipushpull HQ down in the Silicon Basement. The data you’re looking at is updated every time the source sheet changes. The formatting and styles are being captured from the original Excel source, and this page also includes some links to other iPushPull pages, letting you drill down from the summary to the details. So you can build a hierarchy of live data pages as complex or simple as you like, using the tools that you already use, and publish them live in your website. There’s no development required. This is what we like to do at ipushpull – take the tools you love, like Excel and WordPress, and link them together to make difficult jobs simple.

Other Features

Make your data Public or keep it Private

The demonstration page displayed above is a public page, so anyone who visits your site will be able to see it. But you can also use ipushpull’s access control features to restrict access to your data, meaning that your site’s visitors will only be able to access the data by entering a password. Keep a price list private for priority customers, or publish individual pages for all your clients and embed them in your site with no development required on your side.

Display data from any application, not just Excel

If your data’s in Microsoft Excel, the ipushpull WordPress plugin now lets you get it onto your website. We’re also working on new integrations (watch this space for our Google Sheets add-in). But remember that ipushpull is an open platform and you can use our APIs to integrate it with any system or online service.

Not just WordPress

If you don’t use WordPress for your website you can still embed ipushpull pages in it. See this page in our Support Centre for details.

How to do it

The ipushpull WordPress plugin lets you embed pages in your site with a single line of code. For more details visit the ipushpull WordPress plugin page in the WordPress plugin directory. It includes full instructions about installing and using the plugin, but if you need further help please visit the ipushpull Support Centre or email support@ipushpull.com.

Start using ipushpull today by signing up for a free trial.

July 21, 2015July 21, 2015

Another day, another hack – using client-side encryption to protect your data online

The theft of extremely sensitive data at extra-marital affairs site Ashley Madison is just the latest in a series of online data thefts to hit the headlines. As each new case is reported, it reinforces the message that client-side (or end-to-end) encryption – encrypting your data before it leaves your computer or phone – is the best way to be sure that your data is safe online. This article looks at the threats and three ways you can protect your files, data and messages on the web.

Inside Jobs, Social Engineering and Weak Passwords

Ashley Madison claimed that it had received an award for its security measures but unfortunately it was not immune to the inside job – it appears that a company contractor with access to their database has stolen the personal data of millions of users, leaving them and the company open to blackmail and fraud.

Other widely reported hacks have been performed using social engineering. This is the practice of tricking the operators of web sites and services to reveal information or perform actions such as resetting passwords. Many social engineers are highly skilled at this kind of manipulation, but it’s often weak practices at the companies themselves that lead to security compromises.

But probably the most common cause of security breaches is still good old-fashioned password guessing. Too many people still use weak passwords, or the same password across multiple sites, so as soon as one of their sites is compromised all their accounts are at risk.

The best way to protect your data online is to encrypt it before it even gets there. That way, even if an attacker gets access to your account, they cannot decrypt it unless they have access to the keys and they reside on your computer or mobile phone. There’s no way to compromise your data without having access to one of your client devices.

Protecting your files online with SpiderOak and Tresorit

File Sync and Share services such as Dropbox and Google Drive are immensely popular because of their convenience and price. But they don’t encrypt your files before they leave your device – if an attacker gets access to your account at the cloud service they will have full access to all your files. High security alternatives such as Tresorit and SpiderOak are a much safer bet. Their client applications encrypt your files before they leave your computer and let you keep control of the encryption keys. By the time your files reach the cloud their content is unintelligible, and can only be decrypted on your computer or phone by you or someone you’ve authorised.

Protecting your live data online with iPushPull

We’ve built client-side encryption into iPushPull so you can share live data between Excel spreadsheets securely without any middle man being able to intercept it. This isn’t possible with Google Sheets or Excel Online which don’t support client side encryption. And because we’ve built encryption across our entire suite of applications, you can access and update your encrypted data on your mobile phone, in desktop Excel and using our upcoming Google Sheets plugin.

Instant Messaging – who can you trust?

The most popular business messaging services such as Skype do not support end-to-end encryption and are widely believed to have been compromised. In response, the number of end-to-end encrypted messaging services is increasing rapidly and includes established players such as BlackBerry Messenger Protected and more recent entrants such as the highly-respected Wickr. The EFF has produced a handy summary of the strengths and weaknesses of many of the players in the instant messaging market.

The cloud is a convenient place to store and share files, data and messages but your stuff isn’t always as safe as you might want it to be. However, with minimal extra effort you can add end-to-end encryption to stay in control and keep your data secure.

Want to securely share live data between your spreadsheets and the web? Sign up for a free trial of iPushPull today.