Rebecca Ashton joined DTCC, the U.S. post-trade infrastructure, as global head of DTCC Consulting in October 2024 from consultancy Accenture in October 2024, where she had managed the relationship with two large US investment banks for Europe. DTCC helped the U.S move to a shorter settlement cycle of one day after a trade, T+1,  in 2024 and the same move is due to happen in 2027 in Europe. The industry is also having to navigate the shift to operating across 24 hours and the the growing use of digital assets.

How is DTCC Consulting supporting clients through change?

DTCC Consulting started around five years ago because many clients asked us for support, both about interfacing with our products and to address broader industry changes. DTCC has many in-house experts, so it made sense for us to offer a consulting solution to help clients navigate successfully through regulatory and industry change.

Larger market participants tend to have significant resources to invest in change and interpret regulations, whereas smaller institutions in the industry do not have that, therefore our objective is to democratise advisory services and to provide high quality advice to both this part of the market, as well as large financial institutions. To enable that, we have created a retainer model so clients can access half a day of expertise at a time for specific challenges which are created by industry or regulatory change, therefore making advisory services more accessible.

Can clients get help on issues that are not related to DTCC products?

Absolutely. For example, we provide advice on target operating models, support data lineage programmes, process optimisation, strategy and remediation services. We’re currently helping a fellow central securities depository (CSD) with their change strategy and are well placed to do that as the largest CSD in the world. We would categorise ourselves as post-trade and market infrastructure specialists.

Is the industry well prepared for T+1 in Europe?

I think the transition is going to be a little more challenging than the process in the U.S., which has just one CSD – DTCC. There is a significantly different ecosystem in Europe due to the number of CSDs, the legal perspective, the number of countries, time zones and languages, making coordination inherently more difficult.

We hosted a number of webinars for clients and the industry at large to prepare for Europe T+1 because we are well placed to do that after playing a leading role in the successful implementation of T+1 in the U.S. There are a number of lessons that we can apply to the EU and the UK, and to Asia Pacific as those markets start to think about their settlement times.

In a survey that we ran in a recent webinar, 39% of respondents said they are planning or actively implementing and testing for T+1; almost half (49%) are still assessing requirements.

One of the biggest challenges is that even if the larger institutions are well on their way in their  programs, the metrics are heavily skewed by their counterparts that may not have available resources to prepare so far in advance. We have a good, unique selling point from a consultancy perspective because we can leverage Central Trade Matching (CTM) data to identify problem areas and use our data insights and expertise to address inefficiencies.

We can only assess the post-trade efficiency of clients that use CTM, but as so many clients do use it, we have early visibility over same-day matching rates and allocations, which means we can get some good metrics around how well the industry is doing in terms of preparing for T+1 implementation.

We can look at the metrics in CTM, marry it with the data from an institutions’ other providers and lift the hood. We’ve had huge success in improving client’s performance, and one of the ways we’ve helped has been to undertake counterparty outreach for clients on the efficiency of their counterparties. Given we are a respected market infrastructure, we can neutralise any possible friction there may be in telling their clients how to improve.

Are you helping clients use more AI?

We don’t develop bots, but we do a significant amount of output validation. A number of clients are asking how we’re seeing others use AI to get a head start on regulatory and industry change. We are now seeing clients use AI across much of their middle and back-office processing.

Is DTCC transitioning to a 24×5 operating schedule for U.S. equities clearing a topic that frequently comes up when you talk to clients?

This is optional for clients. If a bank wants to implement this to get maximum competitive advantage, it requires a heavy investment in automation, and always-on risk monitoring and control. There is a big shift to make sure risk teams are adequately staffed across all time zones and the necessary expertise requires significant investment. Banks will also incur the expense of pre-funding overnight, which impacts their balance sheet.

The market is demanding that institutions move much faster than they’ve ever had to before, and there is an associated cost. The industry is moving towards a global standard of T+1 settlement timelines, and then maybe in time, T0. In addition, while we are moving to 24×5 trading now, 24×7 trading may not be far behind – which will only be possible with STP (straight though processing)

Do clients ask how they are doing compared to their peers?

Yes, peer group comparisons are a common request. The good news is that we are really well placed to provide anonymised insights in this area. For example, with T+1 we can use CTM data to create an anonymised review amongst a peer group of 10. From a buy-side perspective, we have started producing broker scorecards for post-trade efficiency.

Are clients asking for advice on digital assets?

Following the SEC’s No-Action Letter related to DTCC’s tokenization services, we are starting to engage with a significant number of clients in this area.

The DTC tokenization service will execute a series of limited, initial production trades in July; more than 20 firms spanning both TradFi and DeFi will participate. We expect the tokenization service to go live in October, and there has been a tremendous amount of interest across the industry.

What is your growth strategy?

We’re a relatively new business. Therefore, we are currently focused on ensuring that clients know we are here to support them with their innovation, AI and tokenization needs as well as preparing them for regulatory and wider industry change. Our aim is to be the go-to post-trade consultancy. Our client feedback scores are 4.9 out of 5, which indicates the value our experts have delivered to clients.

Clients trust us because we are member-owned, which means that profit is not the immediate objective. We are product agnostic, including DTCC’s products. For example, when we have been  asked to run vendor assessments for clients in the regulatory reporting space, we tailor our advice to the needs of the client and remain wholly neutral in this process.

We have a fundamentally different reason for existing than other consultancies in that we are here to make markets run safely and efficiently. We lean into our DNA and use our expertise which is built on 50+ years of market infrastructure knowledge, to bring even more value to our clients

What advice would you give to women who want to work in finance?

Financial services is evolving rapidly through technology, data and changing client expectations – creating more opportunities than ever before. It’s a truly exciting time to be part of this industry and help architect the Financial Services of tomorrow.

My advice to women would be to stay curious, be ambitious and never underestimate the value of your unique perspective. Every experience shapes you in some way, lean-in to new opportunities and challenges that present themselves and use set-backs and hard times to build your resiliency – those moments will be the ones that help you thrive in the future.

How do you relax outside work?

I play netball once a week and try to do as much exercise as I can squeeze in – which is never as much as I’d like! Beside that, I have recently moved to a new house with a large garden, so learning all about plants and how not to kill them is a new hobby!