Equilend and Cboe Clear Europe agree to connect CCP clearing infrastructure for securities lending. Oct 08, 2026, 12:30 ET Agreement enables Equilend clients to access Cboe Clear Europe's clearing service for securities lending through existing infrastructure. NEW YORK, Oct. 8, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - Equilend today announced an agreement with Cboe Clear Europe to connect Equilend's trading and post-trade infrastructure to Cboe Clear Europe's securities lending service, enabling clients to access central clearing without building or maintaining direct CCP connectivity. The integration will span Equilend's NGT trading platform and its post-trade suite, covering the full lifecycle of a cleared securities lending trade. Equilend clients will be able to submit trades for clearing at the point of execution via NGT, or through a post-trade workflow, across European and U.S. equities, fixed income, and ETFs for more than 20 global CSDs. Trades can be submitted independently, at trade agreement or via Post trade, through their preferred channel, and Cboe Clear Europe's matching engine reconciles both legs. The solution allows a client to choose Equilend as a provider without consideration for counterparty. The connectivity can also fit into the platforms clients already use, including Equilend's Spire and 1Source, leveraging existing operational processes and platforms and providing clients direct access without costly technology implementations. Cboe Clear Europe introduced a first-of-its-kind central clearing service for securities financing transactions in 2025, initially covering European equities and ETFs and delivering significant capital, operational and risk management benefits. Following strong adoption across the securities lending ecosystem, the service has since expanded to include European and U.S. fixed income products this year, and this week announced the launch of U.S. equities, with additional asset classes planned as part of future rollouts. CCP-cleared transactions may also carry more favorable capital treatment, a growing consideration for participants on both sides of a securities lending trade. "The securities lending market has been moving toward clearing for some time, and the practical question for most participants has been how to get there without rebuilding their operational stack," said Rich Grossi, CEO of Equilend. "This agreement with Cboe Clear Europe gives our clients a straightforward answer, clearing access through infrastructure they already have, with the flexibility to manage it at the point of trade or post-execution." "We've seen strong adoption from firms across the securities lending ecosystem for Cboe Clear Europe's central clearing offering," said Jan Treuren, Head of Product at Cboe Clear Europe. "Building on that momentum, we're keen to drive further adoption through this agreement with Equilend, which will help to bring access to central clearing directly into the workflow where the market already operates." About Equilend Equilend is a global financial technology firm offering Trading, Workflow Automation, Data & Insights, and Digital Solutions for the securities finance industry. With offices in North America, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific, Equilend operates across various jurisdictions worldwide, adhering to the highest regulatory standards. The company is committed to excellence and innovation, with more than $55 trillion in notional transactions on its platform. Equilend is Great Place to Work Certified(TM) in the U.S., UK, Ireland, and India. SOURCE Equilend

Equilend unveils new brand identity, reflecting its role as the connective force in Securities Finance. 15 Sep, 2026, 18:30 IST NEW YORK, Sept. 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - Equilend, the platform connecting the global securities finance market, today announced a refreshed brand identity that reflects how far the company and the industry it serves have evolved. At the center of this evolution is Equilend's rollout of a connected platform across securities finance. Rather than separate tools and workflows, Equilend is bringing trading, workflow automation, data & insights, and digital solutions together through a common orchestration layer, providing clients seamless access to the capabilities they need across the trade lifecycle. The new tagline, "Connecting Securities Finance," reflects Equilend's role in connecting the people, technology, data, and workflows that power the securities finance market. Building on that foundation, Equilend continues to invest in its core platform technology, including the release of Spire 3.0, with full front-to-back office capabilities, and the launch and go-live of 1Source, the DLT-based single source of truth. Recent acquisitions of Trading Apps and Finadium, along with a strategic investment in Digital Prime Technologies, reflect Equilend's continued commitment to expanding its platform and creating lasting value for clients and the broader securities finance marketplace. "For more than two decades, Equilend has been the trusted thread connecting the securities finance market. Over the last 18 months, we've been quietly building a more connected platform - bringing trading, workflow automation, data, and digital solutions together as one. Our new brand reflects that evolution and our continued commitment to connecting securities finance and moving the industry forward," said Rich Grossi, CEO of Equilend. The new identity is live today across Equilend's website and channels. It will be showcased at Equilend's EMEA Client Day on September 16th in London and North America Client Day on September 29th in New York. About Equilend: Equilend is a global financial technology firm offering Trading, Workflow Automation, Data & Insights, and Digital Solutions for the securities finance industry. With offices in North America, EMEA and Asia-Pacific, Equilend operates across various jurisdictions worldwide, adhering to the highest regulatory standards. The company is committed to excellence and innovation and is consistently recognized for its contributions to the industry. Equilend is Great Place to Work Certified(TM) in the U.S., UK, Ireland, and India and has been awarded Trading System of the Year, Americas Data Provider of the Year, and Asian Data Provider of the Year in the Securities Finance Times Industry Excellence Awards 2026.

People Moves: who's hiring who in banking QA? It has been a busy few months for senior technology appointments across banking, financial services and the software testing industry, but look beyond the job titles and a clearer pattern begins to emerge. Banks are not suddenly recruiting dozens of Heads of QA. Instead, they are giving senior engineering leaders broader responsibility for quality engineering, AI governance, platform resilience and software delivery, which clearly means quality engineering is steadily moving up the corporate ladder. Over the past few months, banks, insurers, fintechs and technology providers have reshaped their senior engineering teams, creating new leadership roles around AI, quality engineering, platform resilience and software delivery. Dedicated Head of QA appointments remain relatively rare at the world's largest financial institutions, but responsibility for testing, engineering quality and AI assurance is increasingly sitting alongside CTOs, CIOs and chief AI officers rather than within standalone testing functions, signalling that software quality is becoming an executive concern rather than simply a downstream testing function. Bank of America provides one of the clearest examples. The bank recently reshuffled senior technology leadership, appointing Kevin Milsom as Head of Platforms AI Transformation and moving Amy Avery and her Analytics, Modelling & Insights team into the Global Platforms organisation. On the face of it, those are simply executive appointments. Taken together, however, they show how AI is becoming part of mainstream engineering rather than a standalone innovation programme. As AI moves into production systems, responsibility for testing, governance and engineering discipline inevitably follows. HSBC has reached a similar conclusion by appointing David Rice as its first Chief AI Officer. The creation of a dedicated executive role reflects how quickly AI is becoming part of day-to-day banking operations, where governance and assurance matter just as much as innovation. Elsewhere, financial messaging giant Swift has turned to Michael Manos as its new Chief Information Officer to oversee its global technology platform and transformation programme. For an organisation underpinning international payments, software quality and operational resilience are inseparable from technology leadership. Meanwhile, digital challenger N26 also strengthened its executive team by appointing former ING executive Marcin Pakulnicki as Chief Technology Officer. Having helped scale ING's digital banking platform, Pakulnicki now takes responsibility for the resilience and continued development of N26's rapidly growing technology estate. Also worth mentioning, Citizens Financial Group expanded its engineering leadership recently with the appointment of Rajesh Mani as Managing Director of its India Global Capability Centre. QE gets a bigger voice. The strongest signal, however, comes from organisations putting quality engineering itself closer to the top of the business. Genesis Global has promoted Andrew Rendell to Chief Engineering Officer, giving him responsibility for application delivery, quality, reliability, DevOps, site reliability engineering and operational excellence. It may be hard to think of a clearer indication that quality engineering is increasingly viewed as a core engineering discipline rather than a separate testing activity. National Australia Bank has taken a similar approach with the appointment of Shane Hawke as Head of Quality Engineering Strategy. Rather than overseeing testing alone, Hawke's remit spans enterprise quality transformation, testing strategy and engineering enablement. EquiLend has also invested directly in quality leadership, appointing former Broadridge executive Saheem Kundapur as Head of Quality Engineering to build an enterprise-wide quality engineering capability centred on automation and platform resilience. Meanwhile, Aviva is recruiting a Head of Quality Engineering & Release, combining software testing, release governance, DevOps and engineering improvement under a single leadership role. The title alone illustrates how the boundaries between development, operations and quality continue to blur. Not every recent appointment carried 'quality' in the job title, but many do reflect the same priorities and are worth mentioning. Card issuing platform Marqeta has appointed Lukasz Strozek as Chief Technology Officer, while digital payment software firm Trustly has named Randy Kern as Group CTO. Swedish digital lender Froda has completed its own technology leadership transition by appointing Dan Hyyrynen as Chief Technology Officer following the departure of Roger Forsberg, while Australian financial software provider Iress promoted Darryl Campbell-Blackwell to Group CTO. Meanwhile, financial tech firm Thunes decided to combine product and engineering leadership under new Chief Technology and Product Officer Guy Duncan, while regtech specialist Kyckr signed up Ian Jones as Chief Technology Officer. The insurance sector has been just as active. Arch Insurance North America has appointed Imran Jalozie as Chief Information Officer, Encova Insurance named Ramu Lingala CIO, Goosehead Insurance has recruited Eben Hewitt as Chief Technology Officer, while One Inc, HIVE Underwriters and CopperPoint Insurance Companies all strengthened their executive technology teams with new leadership appointments. Vendors follow the same path. The trend extends well beyond banks. Microsoft has expanded Charlie Bell's responsibilities to include company-wide engineering quality, placing software quality and engineering standards under direct executive oversight. Although outside financial services, the move is likely to resonate with banks that rely heavily on Microsoft's technology platforms. Financial software provider Finastra has also established a dedicated AI Centre of Excellence under Senior Vice President and Group Head of AI Chris McClellen, reinforcing the growing importance of AI governance as intelligent capabilities become embedded within banking software. The software testing industry has also seen interesting people moves recently. Digital quality specialist Applause promoted former Chief Technology Officer Aatish Salvi to Chief Executive Officer, while AI testing vendor Functionize appointed Alan Naumann as Chairman. Tricentis, meanwhile, strengthened its leadership team with the appointments of Jason Bliss as Executive Vice President and President of Business Operations and Todd Horst as Chief Growth Officer. Bigger picture. Viewed individually, many of these appointments are simply executive moves. Together, they tell a more interesting story. Traditional Heads of QA are still relatively uncommon at the largest financial institutions. Instead, quality engineering is being folded into broader engineering leadership, while AI governance, resilience, platform reliability and software delivery are increasingly sitting alongside CTOs, CIOs and chief AI officers. In other words, quality is moving upstream. That may prove to be the most significant people trend of the year. As banks embed AI more deeply into core systems, the conversation is shifting from testing software after it has been built to designing quality, resilience and governance into engineering organisations from the outset. The latest round of appointments suggests many institutions have already started making that transition. This september in london. Why not become a QA Financial subscriber? It's entirely FREE Regulation & Compliance. Looking for more news on regulations and compliance requirements driving developments in software quality engineering at financial firms? Visit its dedicated Regulation & Compliance page here. 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