Steve French is director of product strategy at Traiana, a provider of post-trade processing and risk-management services. 

What were the major themes of your business in 2014?

A major theme for Traiana throughout 2014 was managing the impact of regulatory change on our own services and our customer base. Being a major cross-asset infrastructure provider brings with it a responsibility to provide regulatory compliant services well ahead of any mandate — banks, buy-side clients, brokers, clearing members and execution venues have all been impacted. The introduction of regulatory reporting, clearing and new limit management requirements in the form of order screening of SEF executed trades has affected all of our customers and they have naturally looked to us to provide advice and solutions to help them meet their individual obligations. Last year saw the start of the convergence of swaps processing with many organizations looking to rationalize how they manage FX, OTC and ETDs going forward in order to make better use of systems and staff while also optimizing collateral.

What are your expectations for 2015?

In 2015 enhancements to existing regulatory reporting mandates across Europe, Canada, Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong will see established reporting parties having to manage system changes and buy-side clients having to report for the first time. The introduction of mandatory clearing in Europe will be a major industry initiative. Firms will look to reduce processing costs by performing multiple trade life-cycle events from a single-trade submission rather than treating reporting, clearing and settlement, etc. as separate processes. The introduction of new jurisdictions and regimes including FinfraG in Switzerland and REMIT and MiFID II across Europe have to be planned for now in order for market participants to be ready on time. Traiana will continue to grow its suite of regulatory solutions for both cleared and un-cleared, bi-laterally and platform executed trades across the entire community on a global basis and will play a key part in helping the industry adapt throughout 2015.