Markets Media

March 15, 2019

S3’s Mark Davies discussed the new and updated SEC Rule 606 reporting requirements during an industry call hosted by the Security Traders Association.

AUSTIN, TEXAS January 16, 2019 – S3 (“the Company”), the premier trading compliance company providing innovative solutions to monitor and analyze trade execution and surveillance for equities, options, and fixed income securities, today announced the launch of Order Handling reports designed to meet the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“SEC”) new 606 reporting requirements.

On November 2, 2018, the SEC announced new regulations governing disclosure of order handling practices by Broker Dealers with a compliance deadline of May 20, 2019. In addition to requiring considerably more data and calling for changes in report formatting, these new rules apply to significantly more market participants than previous regulations have, and the new reports are substantially more complex, making them difficult to produce in house.

Mark Davies, CEO of S3, commented on today’s news, “we offer a premium Best Execution and Surveillance solution and therefore, want to ensure that our clients are prepared for these changes well in advance of the SEC deadline. Our ability to rapidly adapt to changing regulations underscores S3’s commitment to providing best in class solutions and remaining the leader in compliance and regulatory reporting.”

S3 first began providing the precursor to the current 606 reports as part of the Best Execution Suite in 2004 and is now the market leader for multi-asset best execution and surveillance. The new 606(a)(1) held order flow reports will be available at no additional charge to clients who subscribe to the S3 Best Execution Suite. While additional data will be required in order to generate the necessary reports, S3 is well equipped to assist clients in preparing the necessary data, ensuring a seamless transition to the new order handling reporting format.

To meet the needs of brokers serving institutional clients, S3 is introducing a Not Held Compliance Suite. This suite will include the new on-demand 606(b)(3) reports and S3’s Transaction Cost Analysis (“TCA”). With these new reports, S3’s Best Execution Suite and the Not Held Compliance Suite ensure that S3 clients will meet all the requirements of the new SEC order handling disclosure rules for both held and not held order flow.

Mr. Davies continued, “S3, along with industry groups, is working directly with the SEC to confirm and clarify the new reporting requirements, and we are poised to adapt reports as necessary if the SEC changes the rules based on industry feedback. With our strong background in regulatory reporting and compliance, we are able to greatly reduce the amount of time and effort brokers will need to spend preparing to meet these new requirements, allowing our clients more time to focus on their customers.”

Mr. Davies will be discussing the new regulations at a fireside chat at the Security Traders Association of Chicago conference on Thursday, January 17, 2019 at 10:30 AM.

About S3
S3 is a financial services software company that provides innovative solutions to monitor and analyze trade execution, facilitate transparency, and simplify regulatory compliance for options, equities, and fixed income securities. The Company’s products are used today by many of the world’s largest financial institutions, broker-dealers, exchanges, bulge bracket and retail banks, and market makers to deliver market structure analytics, trade surveillance and best execution reporting. S3 leverages its proprietary software to provide third-party trade verification and optimize trade execution for both the U.S. and Canadian markets.

Contact:
Jeremy Vest
+1.512.450.6755
jvest@s3.com

AUSTIN, TEXAS October 3, 2018 – S3 (“the Company”), a financial services software company providing innovative solutions to monitor and analyze trade execution for equities, options, and fixed income securities, today announced the launch of its Trade Surveillance Suite, designed to enable compliance and trading professionals to identify market manipulation and other trading violations. With this expansion, S3, already an industry leader in execution analytics, now offers customers a single solution to address all of their compliance needs.

S3 developed the Trade Surveillance Suite to simplify monitoring for market manipulation and trading violations, reducing the time spent on compliance issues without compromising on regulatory obligations. With the Company’s Trade Surveillance Suite, clients are able to monitor for such trade activities as spoofing, layering, marking the close and trade-through while reducing false positives and facilitating cross-product manipulation monitoring. The S3 Trade Surveillance Suite makes use of a powerful interface that allows users to create and adjust custom thresholds and apply the adjusted thresholds to historical data. By comparing outcomes, customers are able to optimize settings, reducing the risk of both false positive and false negative results, drastically improving identification of potential trade violations while simultaneously reducing time wasted on spurious alerts. Once an irregularity is discovered, the Trade Surveillance Suite provides a configurable workflow to document the violation and to archive all of the relevant information for future reference.

Mark Davies, CEO of S3, commented on today’s news, “by leveraging our existing infrastructure, S3 is able to provide a simple, elegant solution that encompasses all of our clients’ regulatory needs, both in execution quality and in trade surveillance. This new offering allows our customers to identify, document and track issues quickly and easily while providing an exceptional level of adjustability and refinement, thereby improving trust between regulators, broker-dealers and their clients.”

S3’s infrastructure is based upon robust, long-term availability of market data, efficiently indexed for rapid access. This market data is integrated with client data by the Company’s proprietary matching engine, forming the foundation of the S3 platform. The S3 Reporting Suite builds upon this base, enabling clients to view, analyze and manipulate their data in reports built specifically to meet their best execution and surveillance needs.

Mr. Davies continued, “Our premium all-in-one solution delivers unparalleled customer service while remaining competitively priced. Additionally, by providing a one stop shop for our customers’ regulatory reporting needs, we enable clients to simultaneously reduce vendor overhead, simplify workflows and improve compliance. We are excited for the opportunity to offer this uniquely integrated product as we continue to expand our offerings.”

About S3
S3 is a financial services software company that provides innovative solutions to monitor and analyze trade execution, facilitate transparency, and simplify regulatory compliance for options, equities, and fixed income securities. The Company’s products are used today by many of the world’s largest financial institutions, broker-dealers, exchanges, bulge bracket and retail banks, and market makers to deliver market structure analytics, trade surveillance and best execution reporting. S3 leverages its proprietary software to provide third-party trade verification and optimize trade execution for both the U.S. and Canadian markets.

Contact:
Jeremy Vest
+1.512.450.6755
jvest@s3.com

Trader’s Magazine

October 2, 2018

S3’s Mark Davies sat down with Trader’s Magazine editor John D’Antona Jr. to discuss S3’s core mission, Mr. Davies’ outlook for fintech and what new offerings the firm will be bringing to the marketplace. 

AUSTIN, Texas, May 9, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — S3 (“the Company”), a financial services software company providing innovative solutions to monitor and analyze trade execution for equities, options, and fixed income securities, today announced the launch of its FX-Aware (FXA) Best Execution Analytics platform, designed to provide cross-border order flow analytics between any two countries. By using the exact exchange rate available at the time of order placement and trade along with the price of execution in either currency, S3’s FXA compares the execution to the market availability in both countries.

S3 developed the FX-Aware Best Execution Analytics platform to fit the unique needs of clients trading cross-border order flow. FXA allows S3 customers to determine the execution quality of their cross-border executions versus the quoted market in both countries. The platform factors order and trade information for each potential cross-border trade, whether conducted in the foreign market or the domestic market, along with the FX rate available to the customer at order and trade time. FXA then compares each real execution against a theoretical execution for an equivalent trade in the other market. Additionally, the platform works with any equivalent security, including dual-listed, interlisted, ADRs and over-the-counter secondary listings. This depth of analysis provides critical information that firms use to understand in which market they will truly achieve best execution, and thereby make more informed cross-border trading decisions that factor in liquidity, price, size and currency fluctuations.

Mark Davies, CEO of S3, commented on today’s news, “Our FXA platform provides cross-border trading firms with greater transparency into those factors impacting cross-border execution destinations, allowing them to adjust their trading strategies to truly achieve best execution for themselves and their clients. I am proud to continue to provide innovation and transparency for the global trading landscape, thereby improving trust and promoting a fairer and better trading environment for all.”

The Company also disclosed today that it has signed a large Canadian cross-border broker-dealer to be the first to utilize FXA. The platform will initially be in use to provide analytics for execution in the Canadian market versus the US market, but the Company has plans to roll out in other foreign markets as well. The new client adds to S3’s impressive roster of Canadian bulge bracket banks and broker-dealers, as the Company continues to expand its global reach.

Mr. Davies continued, “The platform provides significant value to our substantial and growing Canadian customer base. As we continue to grow and expand our global operations, FXA will undoubtedly be a key driver for understanding and promoting cross-border order flow. Although we are beginning with the platform in the US and Canadian markets, it has been built to easily scale and to be replicable in other foreign markets.”

For more information please visit: www.S3.com.

About S3
S3 is a financial services software company that provides innovative solutions to monitor and analyze trade execution, facilitate transparency, and simplify regulatory compliance for options, equities, and fixed income securities. The Company’s products are used today by many of the world’s largest financial institutions, broker-dealers, exchanges, bulge bracket and retail banks, and market makers to deliver market structure analytics and best execution reporting. S3 leverages its proprietary software to provide third-party trade verification and optimize trade execution for both the U.S. and Canadian markets.

Contact:
Jay Morakis (for S3)
M Group Strategic Communications
+1.646.417.8514
jmorakis@mgroupsc.com