DTCC Connection

Michael C. Bodson, President and CEO of The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), was named to the Institutional Investor (II) “2017 Tech 40” ranking of power players in financial technology. This is Bodson’s sixth consecutive appearance on the list and coming in at number 11 is his highest ranking to date, up three places from last year.

“DTCC is fixated on accuracy, efficiency, security, and risk mitigation in post-trade operations, yet it is hard to keep a conversation with [him] from veering into cloud computing, machine learning, or the distributed ledger technology of blockchain. The last was seen as an existential threat to clearinghouses like DTCC before Bodson began to have his say,” Institutional Investor said of his ranking.

The publication questioned whether financial services companies have now really become information technology companies as the industry focuses on managing and making sense of the explosion of data, which has become a business in itself. Because of this, Institutional Investor’s Tech 40 this year spotlighted leaders who “are underlining the ‘I’ in IT.”

DTCC’s leadership on DLT was a factor in the ranking as was the firm’s efforts to leverage cloud computing and automation, including robotics and artificial intelligence, to further mitigate risk, reduce costs and enhance efficiencies. Recent initiatives include:

• Successful completion of initial analysis of ways to better manage the netting of repo start leg transactions leveraging distributed ledger technology (DLT). Phase 2 of the initiative, a Requirement Gathering Phase, was recently completed and DTCC is now assessing the results of that effort.
• Issuing a white paper in May on cloud computing that explained why the technology has reached a tipping point as the capabilities and cost efficiencies now exceed those achieved via in-house data centers.
• Launching an initiative to re-platform the Trade Information Warehouse (TIW) with a cloud-based system that will leverage distributed ledger technology (DLT).

"This recognition from II reflects the hard work of our global team to protect the stability of the marketplace, provide industry-wide leadership on strategic priorities and drive innovative thinking on matters related to risk reduction and processing efficiencies,” Bodson said.