ISLA’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) will showcase the work carried out by the Association during 2023. Amongst other things, this will include key priorities, achievements, and deliverables.

With the lingering impact of inflation, commodity price-instability, and the imminent election cycle across Western Europe, this session will look at the macro-economic landscape, notably against the backdrop of continued and future geo-political uncertainty.

Senior representatives and SMEs from across securities lending and financing discuss the wider business, trading, and product drivers that have dominated much of the markets in 2023. From regulatory imperatives such as the Basel framework and CSDR, to jurisdictional tax and legal developments; all impact decision-making and have downstream implications for post-trade and operations teams.

We invite the Chairs of the UK government’s Accelerated Settlement Taskforce and the Bank of England Securities Lending Committee’s Working Group on Settlement Efficiency, to discuss what triggered the creation of their groups and respective mandates, current status, the road ahead, and ultimate goals of their work.

The pursuit of settlement efficiency has been front and centre of how we think about our industry for many years. CSDR has provided renewed focus and the migration towards T+1 will demand even greater attention. This first of two sessions will debate how our thinking on issues such as Know Your Client (KYC), onboarding and trade initiation is changing when viewed through the prism of T+1.

In a recent survey published by InvestOps, 55% of respondents suggested that identifying the root cause of fails was their single biggest reconciliation challenge. Set against this problematic backdrop, this session will consider how an enhanced settlement cycle will affect the management of life cycle events, collateral mobility, and recalls, and if the current market infrastructure remains fit for purpose.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA) consultations published DEI consultation papers in September. This session will look at the background to the publications, discuss some of the new diversity and inclusion requirements for financial firms, provide insight on the proposals, as well as touch upon some of the challenges that financial firms organisations may face.

A recent survey by Value Exchange on the transformation of securities lending, sponsored by ISLA, investigated not only the shape of the market but also the costs, friction points and the digital trajectory firms are exploring to improve their operating models. A short presentation on the initial findings.

The combined impact of regulatory change with political momentum behind T+1, increases the importance of the debate around technology and vendor solutions. In discussion, this session will allow the incumbents to highlight those areas and product lines that are at the leading edge of meeting these mandatory changes.

Continuing the theme of technology and solutions, this final session of the day will take stock of where our markets are from the perspective of the wider digital agenda, including the adoption of tokenisation and digital assets, but also exploring concepts such as artificial intelligence, to improve operational processes and solve the efficiency conundrum. With digital updates to the Global Master Securities Lending Agreement already in progress, an opportunity to discuss real-life use-cases, and other possible applications.

As part of the ISLA Connects initiative, we are opening this part of the event to our members who are unable to attend the Post Trade Conference sessions during the day. If you are planning to attend the Post Trade conference, you can confirm attendance to the ISLA Connects event during the registration process. If you’re unable to attend the entire conference but can make the networking reception in the evening please RSVP at events@islaemea.org.