The Investment Industry for IT Practitioners: An Introductory Guide

  • 7h 46m
  • Andrew Bradford
  • John Wiley & Sons (UK)
  • 2008

Giving IT professionals in financial services firms a rounded and comprehensive grounding in their knowledge of their industry, this book offers a primer on the major financial instruments, transactions, and processes, as well as a sound knowledge of the principles of good IT management in the industry.

The book gives readers a clear understanding of equities, bonds, currencies, listed derivatives and OTC derivatives. It explains transactions in those instruments and the requirements of business systems that process these transactions. Transactions covered include (inter-alia) agency and principal purchases and sales, loans and deposits, repos and reverse repos, stock loans; and also the Sharia-compliant 'Islamic' transactions that may be used as alternatives to interest bearing transactions.

Andrew Bradford gives an introduction to how investment firms are regulated; offers an understanding of the STP (Straight-through-Processing) concept following the trade cycle for the transactions from order through to execution through pre-settlement to final settlement; covers basic accounting procedures for the transactions; and conveys the basic principles of good IT management in the investment industry.

About the Author

Andrew Bradford (Cheshunt, UK) is a Consultant and an Associate of the Securities and Investment Institute with expertise and background in back office operations, and systems analysis. He has contributed articles to a wide range of financial industry periodicals published in the UK, Europe and the United States including STP Magazine, Derivatives Report, Funds Europe, Journal of Securities Operations, Wall Street and Technology, Trading Technology Week and Futures & Options World. Andrew is the author of the SII IAQ Workbook IT in Investment Operations published in May 2007. Currently a freelance consultant, he has held positions in IT, Operations and Marketing for Merrill Lynch, ABN Amro, Sanwa Bank and ACT Financial Systems.

In this Book

  • An Introduction to Financial Instruments
  • Equities
  • Debt Instruments
  • Cash
  • Derivatives
  • Common Attributes of Financial Instruments
  • Market Participants
  • How Investment Firms are Regulated
  • Straight-Through-Processing
  • The Role of Accurate Static Data in the STP Process
  • Communications Between Industry Participants
  • The Trade Agreement and Settlement Processes
  • Failed Trades — Causes, Consequences and Resolution
  • An Overview of Investment Accounting
  • The Stock Record — Using the Double-entry Convention to Control Positions and Security Quantities
  • Example STP Flows of Equity Agency Trades — When Execution Venue is the London Stock Exchange
  • The STP Flow of Debt Instrument Trades
  • The STP Flow of Foreign Exchange and Money Market Trades
  • The STP Flow of Futures and Options Transactions
  • The STP Flow of Swap and Other OTC Derivative Trades
  • Stock Lending, Repos and Funding
  • The Impact of Islamic Finance
  • The Management of Positions
  • The Management of Risk
  • The Role of the IT Department in Daily Operations
  • The Role of the IT Department in Managing Business Change
  • Package and Vendor Selection, Outsourcing and Offshoring
  • Further Reading
  • Glossary of Terms
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