Asian Investor: Weekly Roundup of People News, Contineo Creates New Role for Data Scientist

Manulife’s fund selector resigns; Credit Suisse appoints China research head; Blackstones finds new China chairman; Contineo creates new role for data scientistRead more at AsianInvestor


Automated Trader: Contineo Appoints Data Scientist

Hong Kong – Contineo, the messaging network for equity-linked structured products, has announced the appointment of Ada Tong as data scientist.CEO Mark Munoz said Ms Tong would be leading Contineo’s development of new data streams and products based on the information generated by the increasing volume on the platform.

“This will be the very first time anyone has been able to quantify the landscape for equity structured products,” he said. “It’s been referred to for years as the ‘black hole’ of financial products. This week, that all changes.”


Head Of Trading: Contineo Hires Data Scientist To Illuminate The “Black Hole Of Data”

Contineo, the industry-backed messaging network for equity-linked structured products, today announced the appointment of Ada Tong as Data Scientist.CEO Mark Munoz said Ms Tong would be leading Contineo’s development of new data streams and products based on the information generated by the increasing volume on the platform.

“This will be the very first time anyone has been able to quantify the landscape for equity structured products,” he said. “It’s been referred to for years as the ‘black hole’ of financial products. This week, that all changes.”

Read more at HeadOfTrading


Mondo Visione: Contineo Hires Data Scientist To Illuminate The “Black Hole Of Data"

Contineo, the industry-backed messaging network for equity-linked structured products, today announced the appointment of Ada Tong as Data Scientist.CEO Mark Munoz said Ms Tong would be leading Contineo’s development of new data streams and products based on the information generated by the increasing volume on the platform.

“This will be the very first time anyone has been able to quantify the landscape for equity structured products,” he said. “It’s been referred to for years as the `black hole’ of financial products. This week, that all changes.”

Read more at MondoVisione


Structured Retail Products: Contineo appoints Data Scientist in transparency push

Contineo has appointed Ada Tong as data scientist in a move to develop new data streams and products based on the information generated by the increasing volume on the platform. Tong will be based in Hong Kong reporting to Mark Muñoz, chief executive of the Hong Kong-based messaging network for equity-linked structured products, and her initial work will focus on providing product distributers with useful information around liquidity, helping to inform their work in building new, efficient strategies and improve the performance for relationship managers.Read more at SRP


Asian Private Banker: Contineo Adds Data Scientist to untangle the "Black Hole of Data"

Not long after the structured products distribution platform went live on the market, Contineo has named a data scientist in Hong Kong to uncover what is commonly known as the “black hole of data” – big data thrown up by high volumes.Ada Tong joins the expanding industry-backed messaging network for flow structured products to develop new data streams and products, based on complex data garnered from the platform. She will focus on providing Contineo’s distributors with information on liquidity and help them build new, efficient strategies and improve the performance of relationship managers.

“This will be the very first time anyone has been able to quantify the landscape for equity structured products,” said Mark Munoz, Contineo CEO.

Read more at AsianPrivateBanker


Hedge Week: Contineo structured product platform goes live

Contineo, a new industry-backed messaging network for equity-linked structured products whose on-boarding subscribers include Julius Baer, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JP Morgan and Societe Generale, has begun live operations.Contineo facilitates transactions between buy- and sell sides. Managing Director Mark Munoz says the firm’s ‘go-live’ represents a new phase in the evolution of the structured products market.

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Asian Private Banker: Consortium-backed structured products platform goes live

Six months after the automated structured products platform launched in Asia, Contineo goes live today.“Our agnostic platform is open to all participants and, through our Advisory Group, we are bringing the industry’s key players together for the first time to develop a set of standards that will benefit us all,” Mark Munoz, managing director of Contineo said.

The multi-issuer platform and messaging network currently has HSBC, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Societe Generale on its sell side roster. It will distribute equity linked notes, knock-out equity linked notes, accumulators, decumulators, fixed coupon notes, DRAN and OTC options to private banks.

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Structured products: Centralised orders for Asia’s structured products

Private banking access to equity-linked structured products in Asia Pacific is set to be revolutionised after a group of global banks clubbed together to create a centralised ordering system.The system, named Contineo, was launched in January this year and will become fully operational in June. It provides an electronic messaging network to connect buyers and sellers, which will simplify market structure and provide transparency in what is an opaque market with little solid information on value or volumes. Contineo is funded by Barclays, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan and Société Générale, together with technology firm AG Delta. Julius Baer is the first private bank involved with the system.

Combination “The benefit of Contineo for us is a combination of three things,” says Lemuel Lee, head of third party distribution, Asia Pacific, equity derivatives group, JPMorgan. “The first is efficiencies. A lot of this business is existing business, but to have a network where issuers and distributors congregate, we expect efficiencies in terms of the way we operate the business. The second benefit is from a cost perspective. In terms of where we invest in our technology resources, there is a finite amount of funding, so we need to be very nimble.

“Thirdly, ultimately, we hope it brings us to a wider network of clients, but that’s a double-edged sword because as you bring more efficiency into price discovery and competition, then naturally more players come into the market. Having said that, there may be clients we are not covering that join this network.”

Contineo charges annual licence fees to both the buy and sell sides. The platform allows the trading of: equity-linked notes; knock-out equity-linked notes; accumulators; decumulators; fixed coupon notes; daily range accrual notes and over-the-counter options.

“There are things that will be bespoke in nature that we will not be able to sell on the platform,” says Lee.

“The purpose for efficiency is that we will be selling commoditized products. I don’t think any of the banks or distributors have any plans at present to put through more bespoke products on the platform. That may be long-term.”

“Contineo is a very similar system to the way you book hotels on the internet now,” says Jeffrey Juan, managing director, head of EFS (equity and funds structured markets) solutions sales, non-Japan Asia at Barclays. “Every product provider has limited resources, so everyone has come together to create this platform. The older clients in private banking want to cut costs. The best way is to improve the IT systems to help do this.”

He says that client behaviour is changing. “They don’t want to receive prices from different product providers every day. They want a summary. If the industry doesn’t go this way, it would lead to each bank deploying ever-increasing resources to build our own systems to connect to each client, so why not do it together? It’s not about increasing business for us, but maintaining our current market share without incurring a lot of IT costs.”

Mark Munoz, managing director of Contineo, is coordinating the project.

He is keen to emphasise the greater convenience of the system, but the advantages in a world where regulators are demanding greater transparency from banks are also key.

Looking for the same thing “Previously, if somebody were to send a message to get a quote, they’d get maybe 10 messages back from different providers all through email,” says Munoz. “They’d have to assemble them together through Excel. It’s been very messy. All of the banks are moving off the voice and email because it’s not compliance-friendly. It works, but it’s obviously very difficult for them to do an audit or to get a trail of information back to an order. They’re all migrating into this platform and they’re all telling their clients to migrate into this platform. I think that as much as the private banks are looking for automation, the sell side are looking for the same thing.”

Along with players such as Vontobel and FinIQ, one of Contineo’s main competitors comes from the partnership between Singaporean bank DBS and Swiss firm Leonteq. The two announced late last year an initiative for the origination and distribution of equity derivative structured products. In March they followed this by linking up with two more companies, Numerix and Avaloq, to set up an integrated multi-issuer investment products distribution system (IPDS) with an initial focus on Asia Pacific.

“The partnership between DBS and Leonteq is to cater to a growing demand among Europe-based institutional investors for equity structures on Asian products issued by highly rated issuers,” says Calvin Yeap, head of equity derivatives trading, DBS Bank. “Currently, the notes distributed by Leonteq account for about a quarter of the structured equity derivatives notes DBS issues in Asia and Europe.

“The partnership between DBS, Leonteq, Avaloq and Numerix arose out of a need to find a solution to improve the efficiency and scalability of the entire trade life cycle, which will benefit both the buy and sell side.”

With equity derivatives as the starting point, he says Leonteq and Numerix, in consultation with DBS, will design, build and implement the IPDS, which will eventually span different asset classes and multiple issuers.


Automated Trader: Contineo structured product platform goes live

Contineo, the industry-backed messaging network for equity-linked structured products, has commenced live operationsHong Kong – Contineo, whose on-boarding subscribers include Julius Baer, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, J.P. Morgan and Societe Generale, is a messaging network facilitating transactions between buy- and sell sides. Managing Director Mark Munoz said Contineo’s go-live represented a new phase in the evolution of the structured products market.

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