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Who Safeguards the Industry?

Traders Magazine Online News, July 27, 2017

John D'Antona Jr.

The business of Wall Street trading is often viewed as glamorous – fancy suits, expensive restaurants, talk of big bonuses and handsome young people – everything that makes for great Hollywood imagery. But there’s more to trading than just the actual execution and the bragging rights that go along with it. What happens after the trader pushes the execute button or clicks his mouse? How does the security get transferred between the buyer and seller? Who ensures the risk between buyers and sellers is managed at an adequate level? And does the buyer or seller have enough cash or capital to hold up their end of the trade?

Don’t know? It’s the clearinghouse.

And for 100 million transactions, representing over $4 trillion of market value in securities, processed every single day, it’s the job of The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) to ensure a smooth and orderly back office. DTCC’s function and guardianship of the trading process ecosystem, while not the stuff of movies, is nonetheless vital and important.

According to DTCC’s Head of Clearing Agency Services, Murray Pozmanter, the DTCC system is akin to that of a lineman in American-rules football who protects the ball-handling quarterback or running back – you really only hear about them when something goes awry.

Murray Pozmanter, DTCC

“To most people who aren’t market professionals, we remain a relative unknown,” Pozmanter began. “We do a lot of the behind-the-scenes work that is probably never apparent to the retail investor who opens a brokerage account.”

Pozmanter’s mission is to educate both the public and Wall Street alike to the critical role DTCC plays daily in reducing market risk, developing and implementing new technologies designed to increase efficiency and provide more stability in an increasingly changing market environment.

Please see http://perspectives.dtcc.com/social-good-market-utilities/

“People should know about the clearing agency: how it secures the market, how the infrastructure works and impacts the retail investor community,” he added. “We might never directly engage with theend investor, but they should know we are here – and even as the nature of risk has become more complex, interconnected and unpredictable, we are protecting the system.”

Game Changer

DTCC, like any functional public utility, has been around for quite some time, but operated much like the water or electricity in a residential system – always in the background, silently doing its job, and one would only think about it if the lights went out.

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