EXCLUSIVE: Richard Glen joins HQLAX as Solutions Architect
Latest news
EXCLUSIVE: Richard Glen joins HQLAX as Solutions Architect 01 February 2022UK Reporter: Bob Currie
Image: RG
HQLAX has appointed Richard Glen as Solutions Architect.
Glen is based in HQLAX’s newly-opened London office in Gresham Street and began his employment with the company this morning.
Speaking exclusively to SFT, HQLAX’s chief operating officer Nick Short says that Richard Glen’s appointment is central to the company’s plans to expand its business footprint in London.
“Richard’s role as Solutions Architect is focused on solving business problems for our clients,” says Short. “We work closely with customers to address their pain points and to apply the HQLAX solution to bring greater efficiency to collateral mobilisation, transformation and liquidity management needs.”
Short explains that HQLAX’s Delivery-versus-Delivery (DvD) model enables clients to lower their capital costs by reducing intraday liquidity requirements, credit risk and operational risk.
“This DvD model enables users to instruct change of ownership of collateral baskets to the nearest minute, allowing users to fine tune and optimise their collateral and liquidity management strategies,” says Short. “When managing Liquidity Coverage Ratio and Net Stable Funding Ratio requirements, for example, this enables users to manage their liquidity buffers more efficiently by permitting transfers of HQLAX baskets in close to real time.”
Glen leaves Clearstream after 17 years with the organisation, most recently serving as head of collateral management within Clearstream’s Banking, Funding and Financing division based in London. For the past 18 months, he was also general manager of Clearstream Banking SA’s London branch.
Prior to this, Glen was Clearstream’s head of global securities financing (GSF) sales for the UK, Ireland and Americas from 2005 until 2016, adding the Asia-Pacific region to these responsibilities from 2016 until 2018.
“Having worked for 15 years with collateral and liquidity management solutions in a financial infrastructure environment, I welcome the opportunity to apply these skills at HQLAX, working closely with clients to meet their service requirements and to broaden the solutions offered by the HQLAX platform,” comments Glen.
HQLAX was launched in 2018 as a collaboration with Deutsche Börse Group for securities lending and collateral transformation hosted on R3’s Corda blockchain solution. This aims to bring greater efficiency in the movement of high-quality liquid assets (HQLA).
The HQLAX model aims to support collateral transformation trades – for example upgrading lower quality to higher-quality collateral – but without the need to transfer securities between custody accounts of the trading parties.
Instead, a tokenised transfer of ownership takes place on distributed ledger technology (DLT), while the underlying securities remain static and are kept off blockchain.
The platform is accessed via Eurex Repo’s trading system, with Deutsche Börse standing as a “trusted third party” (TTP) to the transaction, holding baskets of securities at tri-party agents and custodians on behalf of market participants.
Critical mass has been building on the platform. Commerzbank, UBS and Credit Suisse have been active in the project since 2018 as early adopters, alongside Deutsche Börse Group as major shareholder and TTP.
In January 2021, HQLAX completed a €14.4 million funding round with BNY Mellon, Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas Securities Services (BNPPSS), Citi and Deutsche Börse Group.
In June, HQLAX also added JPMorgan as a strategic investor in its Series-B funding round.
In concluding, Nick Short adds: “Our clients are attracted by what the HQLAX platform is able to deliver today, but also particularly by what it will deliver in the future. We build our solutions in close collaboration with our customers. The expertise that Richard brings to the company is essential to this process — and we are highly excited by his appointment.”
NO FEE, NO RISK 100% ON RETURNSIf you invest in only one securities finance news source this
year, make sure it is your free subscription to Securities Finance Times
Image: RG 