6 minute read
Point Nine
by PaulGC
CHRISTINA BARBASH & ALEXIA KOKKINOU
BDM & Head of Client Success at Point Nine
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Q Tell me about yourselves, your background, and your current role at Point Nine.
Christina: “I’m originally from Ukraine and moved to Cyprus 16 years ago. I had been working in the Forex industry for seven years before I joined Point Nine. During my tenure in the Forex Industry, I had heard about the Fintech and Regtech industry and immediately became interested in it. It was then that I decided to make a change. Today, my role at Point Nine is Business Development Manager. I help bring in new business and partnerships to the company. We work hard to establish partnerships with different companies that will allow us to grow further.”
Alexia: “I studied Mathematics and have a Master’s degree in Actuarial and Finance Mathematics. I joined Point Nine as an Operations Analyst offering middle and back-office services to Funds, Hedge Funds, Investment Banks, amongst others. Two years later, I was transferred to the regulatory reporting department of the company as a Client Success Manager. Following the acquisition of Point Nine from MUFG, I was offered the Head of Client Success at Point Nine Data Trust. One of the primary responsibilities of our team, among other things, is to understand our clients’ requirements, assist them with their reporting operations, and deliver solutions that are aligned with their business requirements and specifications.
According to our clients’ needs, we will onboard them and liaise internally to adjust our system on our clients’ bespoke business rules. The maintenance of our clients’ reporting processes is one of our top priorities; hence we are in constant communication with them to eliminate and mitigate any issues or exceptions that may arise.”
Q What are the plans for 2022 for Point Nine?
Christina: “Our goals for 2022 include growing our market presence through strategic alliances. Along with that strategy, we want to grow our team of Point Nine-ers. We are also in the process of increasing our product and service coverage to all major jurisdictions, including USA, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Canada and also add more EU/UK reporting regimes, such as MMSR. We are aiming to give more back to our society through our CSR.”
Q You have been working at Point Nine for a long time. Describe to us how Point Nine started to offer Trade & Translation Reporting services. What were the big obstacles along the way? How did you manage to establish Point Nine as one of the premier providers in this industry?
Alexia: “When the founders of Point Nine met two of the most capable professionals in the RegTech industry, they saw it as an opportunity to expand our service offering to clients. At the time, RegTech was in the early stages of development, and recruiting these experts turned out to be a great decision. These two professionals are now the partners, the CEO, and CP&TO of Point Nine Data Trust.
The complexity of the reporting requirements and specifications, and the large number of required fields to be reported were among the difficulties we had to overcome. The guidelines that were initially provided by the authorities were vague and kept changing continuously through the years—something that still happens. Point Nine personnel now have the knowledge and expertise to untangle regulations and understand and implement the updates and amendments for each regulatory regime. We relied on our team of experts in every aspect and managed to become one of the leading companies in the RegTech industry.”
Q What exactly does Point Nine offer?
Christina: “Point Nine Data Trust is an industryleading team of experts specialising in trade processing and reporting. We serve as a dedicated regulatory reporting firm focused on providing trade and transaction reporting services to legal entities across the globe. Point Nine works with financial firms—both on the buy- and sell-sides—financial services providers, and corporations to help them ensure high-quality and accurate reporting to remain compliant with EU and UK (EMIR, MiFIR, SFTR), Australia ASIC, and Switzerland FinfraG. Point Nine also maintains 100% accuracy in MiFIR, SFTR, and 99.95% accuracy in EMIR / ASIC reporting.
Through the years, ever-evolving financial services landscape, and changing regulatory requirements, Point Nine has learned how to best support clients to ensure their success. As a result, we have developed processes, platforms, and policies to ensure that each and every client receives timely and best-in-class support when they need it most.”
Q What makes your service different than the competition?
Alexia: “Apart from our solution’s ‘unlimited’ capabilities, our day-today dedicated support to our clients makes our service reliable and high quality. Our system is flexible and adjustable to our clients’ needs and can be integrated with any data source such as trading systems, order management (OMS), or back-office systems. We proactively enrich our validations prior to report submissions, hence the exceptions received by the TRs/ARMs/NCAs are minimal. In a few words, our driven customer support team combined with our leading-edge technology sets clients up for success.”
Q Alexia, describe to us the process after Christina signs a new client. How much do the two of you collaborate?
Alexia: “The business development team will provide us with the necessary information regarding our new client’s business activities. We will arrange a meeting with the client to establish the foundations, gather the rest of the necessary information, and perform a demonstration of our system.
Once the agreement between Point Nine and the client is signed, the Solutions Implementation team will connect with the client’s designated point of contact to kick off the onboarding process. Our team then analyses any documentation and business rules provided by the client and coordinates with the software development team for the implementation. We then send results to our client for review and confirmation. Once everything is in place, reporting moves to production. The two departments collaborate not only during the onboarding of a new client but also when a client needs to amend the agreement due to business changes.”
Q Which type of clients do you work with, Christina? Is there a specific market segment in which you’d like to see P9’s presence grow?
Christina: “Because of my background in the Forex industry, I’m currently concentrating more on retail Forex brokers . We have already signed contracts with many large brokers but we want to expand our client base. Our clientele includes regional banks, big corporates, high-frequency trading firms, fund managers, and investment firms.”
Q What advice can you give to a newly established company to become successful?
Alexia: “I am not an expert in business growth strategies, but I could share some insights based on my experience with Point Nine. Recruiting the right people and investing in them are key to the success of a newly established company. A passionate and dedicated team will drive the company forward. Listening to your clients, learning to put yourself in their shoes, and taking the time to truly understand their needs will allow you to create an excellent product for them, which in turn, will lead to growing your clientele. Being flexible and willing to adjust to an ever-changing market will help you to maintain a competitive edge.”
Point Nine is a dedicated regulatory reporting firm, focusing on providing trade and transaction reporting services to legal entities across the globe. For a best-in-class service using state of the art technology and with a proven track record of submission success, Point Nine is your trusted partner in trade and transaction reporting.
Peace of mind with our end-to-end solution
Our in-house technology, is a scalable regulatory solution utilized by many firms. We have processed and reported more than 7 billion reports and have served over 100 legal entities to date. Our technology is designed to help firms successfully meet their trade and transaction reporting requirements and remain compliant.
Point Nine Approach
SOURCE DATA
Reports
Mapping ◆ Validations Bespoke Business Rules Enrichment ◆ Eligibility UTI Management Pre-Matching Exception Management
PLATFORM
Report
T+1 Transformed data EMIR ◆ MiFIR ASIC ◆ SFTR FinfraG
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