Edwards, with almost two decades of experience in securities finance, and liquidity and financial resource management, will strengthen State Street’s collateral management team in Asia Pacific to better support its regional clients in devising a well-executed collateral strategy. Edwards will report globally to Staffan Ahlner, global head of Collateral Management, and regionally to Michele Hardeman, head of Global Markets, Asia Pacific. Sam will be based in Hong Kong.

“Collateral management is fundamental for institutions to manage capital, risk, liquidity and regulatory compliance” said Ahlner. “Market evolution has not only highlighted the importance of liquidity management but also its efficiency large buffers could represent a drag on portfolio balance. Whilst there are several opportunities in the market the evolving regulations are adding operational complexity and creating liquidity challenges for investors if collateral is not managed properly.”

State Street’s Uncleared Margin Rules (UMR) Readiness Survey^[1] revealed that more than 80 percent of institutions are unprepared to comply with all facets of the next phases of the UMR. Institutions in scope for these rules must have strong counterparty relationships plus a range of sophisticated operational and analytical capabilities to assess their exposure and ensure compliance. Some buy side clients have taken the UMR regulation as an opportunity to review their end to end and front to back strategy when it comes to collateral to ensure they maximize access to liquidity and transformation opportunities whilst solving for regulatory compliance.

“With State Street’s collateral management solution, Collateral+, clients will have a strong understanding of their regulatory obligations through our complementary assessment of their portfolios and prepare them to meet new requirements with confidence, minimizing their cost of collateral with our analytical tool and driving efficiency in their operating models with our end-to-end capabilities,” said Hardeman. “With this integrated, data-driven platform, combined with Sam’s local knowledge and expertise, we are well positioned to support our Asia Pacific clients in improving operational efficiency, achieving UMR compliance and managing risk and liquidity by streamlining their collateral program.”

Edwards joins State Street from Credit Suisse, where he established secured financing in APAC and established equity financing capabilities in EMEA during his 12-year tenure with the firm. His most recent role was head of Asia Pacific Central Collateral Desk. Prior to Credit Suisse, Edwards spent six years at Lehman Brothers’ on the Equity & Fixed Income Secured Financing Desk.

“The objective for our clients is not only to meet the immediate needs of margin segregation and management, but also to deliver greater ongoing returns in a challenging market place. To that end, we are partnering with them to enable enhanced inventory, liquidity and risk management to drive financial resource efficiency and overall returns. I look forward to engaging and working with our clients across APAC,” said Edwards.

State Street’s Collateral+ is an integrated platform with tri party, third party and margin management which empowers clients to tailor their collateral management service, solve UMR compliance issues and increase overall operational efficiency with real-time, aggregated data transparency and added straight-through processing to meet collateral demands. In addition, Collateral+ includes efficient pre-trade and collateral analytics enabling clients to decrease margin and funding costs, thus minimizing any associated portfolio drag.

———–

[1] State Street engaged Oxford Economics to field a global survey of 300 industry executives from 16 countries during June 2020.

The post State Street bolsters its Collateral Management Team in APAC with new appointment appeared first on AdviserVoice.

Hardeman, who has relocated to Hong Kong from Boston, previously served as head of foreign exchange sales for State Street Global Markets.

In her new role, Hardeman leads the strategic direction, sales, service and operations of the Global Markets business in Asia-Pacific. She reports to Wai-Kwong Seck, chief executive officer for Asia-Pacific, and Lou Maiuri, global head of Global Markets.

“Michele has more than 20 years of experience in capital markets across Australia and the US,” said Seck. “Her global experience and deep understanding of the challenges clients face will enhance our Global Markets capabilities in the region.”

“Investors are always challenged with the need  to generate and preserve alpha in the current market environment, where interest rates are rising, volatility is increasing and many asset classes are getting expensive,” said Hardeman. “Our decision to partner with leading academics at institutions such as Harvard and MIT has allowed us to engage with our customers in unique and productive ways. Our proprietary indicators and research can help clients in Asia-Pacific navigate global markets to improve investment returns and minimise risk. I am excited to return to Asia-Pacific to lead State Street Global Markets as we grow and broaden our capabilities and client base in the region.”

Hardeman joined State Street in 1998 and was head of FX sales for Australia prior to her move to Boston in 2011, where she took on the same position for the Americas. Michele became global head of FX sales in 2015.

State Street Global Markets offers specialised investment research, foreign exchange trading, open architecture trading platforms, transition management, currency management, liquidity management, securities lending and enhanced custody to institutional investors in more than 100 markets globally. It ranked number one in flow research for real money clients and in customer satisfaction globally in the Euromoney 2018 FX survey.

The post State Street appoints Michele Hardeman as Head of Global Markets for Asia-Pacific appeared first on AdviserVoice.