Tiefenbrun brings more than 20 years industry experience to his new position, which will see him leading Cboe’s cash equities businesses in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific, and bringing a global framework to the sector.  

David Howson, global president of Cboe Global Markets, said: “Natan’s leadership will be important as we continue to activate and capitalise on the unrivalled global network of equity exchanges we’ve built in recent years, driving growth, expanding our range of products and reinforcing our position as a pioneer in orderbook innovation.” 

London-based Tiefenbrun began working for Cboe in June 2021, assuming the position of head of European equities, before becoming president of Cboe Europe in June 2022.  

He took on his most recent role as president for North American and European equities for Cboe in October 2023.  

Tiefenbrun also has extensive experience working in senior positions across the financial sector.  

Prior to his career at Cboe, he acted as managing director for European execution services for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, chief executive of Turquoise, head of products, equity and derivative markets at the London Stock Exchange (LSEG), and international president of Instinet.  

Read more – Cboe appoints new derivatives market intelligence director 

The new position follows a recent push to expand many of Cboe’s business lines, including derivatives, clearing, FX and data vantage. At the beginning of April, the exchange named Wei Liao as its new director of derivatives market intelligence, driving forward Cboe’s derivatives market and content franchise to its client base in Asia Pacific.  

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The firm, founded in 2018, made a big splash recently with the hire of former Citi, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan executive Sabrina Wilson and has now followed up by lifting a team from BAML to expand its prime infrastructure.

Leading the unit will be Michael Roberts, formerly managing director and EMEA head of BAML’s prime platform. Roberts boasts 16 years’ experience from BAML.

He will be joined by Ben Carr and Ross Budgen who add expertise in product development, account management and analytics. Together, they have more than 45 years’ experience in prime services.

The other additions are account management specialist Adam Groom and Paul Barham, who worked in platform management at BAML. Groom had been with BAML since 2004 and Barham since 2005.

Reporting to Boris Bohrer-Bilowitzki, chief revenue officer at Copper, the five will work with the digital asset firm’s existing team to accelerate the expansion of prime infrastructure; in terms of custody, collateral management and hedging services.

Copper launched ClearLoop in 2020 to “ensure institutional investors could trade with crypto exchanges efficiently and securely”.

Copper said by removing the need to transfer digital assets onto an exchange before being able to trade, ClearLoop minimises counterparty risks and reduces withdrawal time.

Later in 2020, Copper expanded its ClearLoop network to include collateral management for crypto derivatives. With this added functionality, Copper acts as an independent third-party for collateral management and settlement.

Bohrer-Bilowitzki, commented: “Since the inception of Copper, we have been committed to exceeding market expectations of the gold standard in crypto-asset custody and trading.  Part of that commitment means securing top-tier talent to ensure we remain at the forefront.  I have no doubt that Mike, Adam, Paul, Ben and Ross will fit seamlessly into the team as we push the boundaries of possibility within the Copper ecosystem and continue to develop infrastructure to empower prime brokers with the infrastructure they need. I look forward to working with each of them tremendously.”

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The MAP functionality currently supports the execution of lists comprising GBP-denominated vanilla and inflation swaps, gilts and gilt index-linked bonds, and aims to replace existing manual-based workflows whereby trades were conducted via phone or chat apps.

“Our MAP functionality is a clear demonstration of Tradeweb’s unique ability to enhance the trading experience for our clients, and connect the buy-side with deep liquidity pools across asset classes on a single electronic venue, and in this case a single trade,” said Lee Olesky, CEO of Tradeweb Markets.

“Tradeweb’s strategic approach continues to be focused on building robust and efficient trading solutions that advance our markets globally.”

As well as aiming to reduce the time spent on preparing and completing such trades, the MAP functionality seeks to reduce errors, increase execution speed and achieve greater competitive pricing, according to Tradeweb.

The first fully-electronic MAP transaction using in-competition request-for-quote (RFQ) was completed between Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

“The Global Trading team at LGIM is constantly looking for ways to innovate, and ultimately improve client outcomes,” said Phil Hunter, head of rates trading at Legal & General Investment Management. “The Tradeweb MAP functionality helps LGIM reduce trading costs and achieve straight-through processing, while also ensuring that enhanced best execution requirements under MiFID II are being met.”

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The investment bank confessed it systematically hid where dark pool orders were being sent as part of undisclosed agreements with high-frequency trading firms such as Citadel Securities, Knight Capital, Two Sigma Securities and Madoff Securities.

Over a five-year period, BAML reprogrammed its electronic trading systems, doctored trade confirmations sent to clients and altered post-trade reports to avoid detection, claiming orders sent to those liquidity providers were instead being executed in-house.

Authorities in New York found BAML applied its ‘masking scheme’ to more than 16 million client orders between 2008 and 2013, representing over four billion traded shares.

“Bank of America Merrill Lynch went to astonishing lengths to defraud its own institutional clients about who was seeing and filling their orders, who was trading in its dark pool, and the capabilities of its electronic trading services,” New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said.

“As Wall Street firms offer increasingly complex electronic trading services, they cannot use new technology to exploit their clients in service of their business relationships with large industry players, like Bank of America Merrill Lynch did here.”

The settlement is the latest in a string of regulatory actions against major financial institutions related to electronic, dark pools and high frequency trading.

In 2016, Barclays was fined $35 million for misleading investors about its dark pool operations and exposing orders to ‘predatory’ traders despite leading clients to believe it would protect orders from them.

At the same time, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse paid fines worth $18.5 million and $30 million respectively for similar fraudulent pool and electronic trading operations.

“I urge all members of the financial community to evaluate and if necessary reform your practices around electronic trading services, to ensure that you treat each and every client, big and small, ethically and loyally. For those financial institutions that refuse to do so, we will hold you accountable,” concluded Attorney General Schneiderman.

Concerns around potential broker conflicts has seen asset managers urge the sell-side to provide full order routing transparency. Last year, The TRADE investigated if the buy-side should be doing to more to find out where their orders are being sent.

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Paul Walter received the penalty of £60,090 after the regulatory watchdog found he had created a “false and misleading impression” of supply and demand in the market for Dutch State Loans (DSL).

The FCA said he did this on 12 occasions in July and August 2014, resulting in profit of €22,000 to his trading book.

“Market manipulation undermines market integrity and confidence,” said Mark Steward, executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA.

“The FCA will be vigilant in detecting abusive practices and will take robust action to protect issuers and participants from all over the world from the harm caused by such abuse.” 

According the UK regulator, Walter entered a series of quotes that became the best bids on BrokerTec on 11 occasions, giving the impression that he was a buyer in a DSL.

The FCA discovered that other market participants who were tracking his quotes with algorithms followed him in response and raised their bids, before he then sold to those other participants and cancelled his own quote. 

Despite placing quotes that suggested he wanted to buy, he actually sold the DSL, the FCA said.

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Citi has poached a number of people to join its equities electronic execution business, according to a memo seen by The TRADE.

Joseph Sidibe has joined as a senior salesperson within platform sales, focusing on electronic trading services for the bank’s institutional clients.

He joins Citi from Bank of America Merrill Lynch where he spent 10 years, most recently heading up the electronic sales for Continental Europe.

Citi said as it continues to build momentum of its equities platform, it is “committed to attracting the industry’s top talent to provide clients with market-leading solutions across products and geographies”.

Also joining the platform sales team as an execution advisory services specialist is Phoebe Nockolds, who has departed Liquidnet having been in a similar role.

Both Nockolds and Sidibe will report into managing director and head of low touch execution and platform sales EMEA, James Harris.

Lastly, Rupert Dransfield, formerly a sales trader at HSBC, has joined Citi in the same role focusing on institutional clients within the bank’s electronic trading desk.

He will report into Kavel Patel who heads up electronic sales trading EMEA.

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According to Companies House, Walker joined as an independent non-executive director at the beginning of June.

Walker left the US bank in October last year, following a four year stint co-heading its European electronic equities business alongside Natan Tiefenbrun.

He joined Merrill Lynch in 2006, and had spearheaded the bank’s impressive growth in market share in electronic trading during his time there.

His appointment is the latest high-profile appointment for Citadel Securities’ European business, after hiring JP Morgan’s former European head of equities trading, Laurent Marquis, in April.

Citadel Securities kick started the year with a flurry of appointments in Europe including Mete Mustecaplioglu, former head of trading at LaSalle, as an equities trader, and two senior traders from Susquehanna International Group, according to reports.

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ICE will take over the global research division’s index platform from BAML, the second most-used fixed income indices by assets under management (AUM) globally.

Upon closing, the AUM benchmarked against the combined fixed income businesses of ICE will stand at nearly $1 trillion.

“We believe the BAML Global Research FICC indices will offer customers more choice alongside the ICE US Treasury indices and NYSE equity indices as comprehensive, trusted benchmarks,” said Lynn Martin, president and COO, ICE Data Services.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, which is expected to completed by the end of the year.

“As the demand for independent indices rises, we are pleased to monetize this valuable set of benchmarks with a strategic owner,” said Candace Browning, head of Global Research, Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

The acquisition follows the purchase of Citi’s fixed income index business by the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) earlier this week for $685 million.

Exchanges are looking to expand into more profitable alternative business lines, such as the index and market data business, with revenues from traditional lines drying up.

In the first quarter of this year, ICE saw revenues from its trading and clearing businesses decline by 6% year-on year. However, its data and listing business saw an 8% growth overall, in which data services grew by 9% to %520 million. 

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Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML) has become the latest investment bank to join the fixed income network for ‘axe’ indications, Neptune.

The network provides a venue for investors to sift through bond axes and inventory data from bank counterparts and allows a more targeted approach to executing large size orders in fixed income.

BAML joins the likes of Citi, Deutsche Bank, Jefferies and Nomura who joined the network last year and earlier this year.

Citi and Deutsche Bank also agreed to provide data for the network and took stakes in the company in November last year.

Currently, 19 bond dealers are live on the network providing axe data on over 14,500 securities with over $131 billion in gross notional across 20 different denominations.

Grant Wilson, CEO of Neptune Networks, explained the addition of BAML means Neptune Networks now include the leading fixed income market makers.

“This is an important step forward in the development of our open-access, non-discriminatory network and will make these markets more efficient,” he added.

BAML will provide its data to the network in the second quarter this year.

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JP Morgan has been handed a fine of $900,000 by US regulators for overcharging clients for clearing and exchange services.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) found JP Morgan failed to supervise the processing of exchange and clearing fees it charged customers for trading Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) products.

JP Morgan did not have adequate systems for reconciling invoices from exchange clearinghouses, which was largely manual and carried out by one employee.

“In addition to insufficient staff to complete the fee reconciliation process accurately, [JP Morgan] did not have adequate written policies and procedures in place regarding its clearing and exchange fee reconciliations,” the US regulator said.

The CFTC said some clients were overcharged by an aggregate amount of around $7.8 million between 2010 and 2014.

In August last year, Barclays was fined $800,000 for similar offences regarding fees for clearing and exchange services.

Bank of America Merrill lynch was fined $1.2 million by the CFTC in 2014 for failing to supervise and process futures exchange and clearing fees. 

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