Operations Newsflashes: The Clearing Corporation Names Futures Veteran to Board, and more

The Clearing Corporation (CCorp) appointed David Johnson, a recently retired managing director of Morgan Stanley's futures and options division, to its board of directors, according to Tuesday's announcement by the independent futures clearinghouse.

Johnson spent 22 years with Morgan Stanley. He has been a member of the American Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade, as well as the Chicago Stock Exchange, the National Stock Exchange and the Pacific Exchange.

Johnson, who is a U.S. Navy veteran, also served on CCorp.'s board of directors from February 1991 until February 1997, and was chairman from 1994 to 1996.

Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Johnson was first vice president in charge of operations and marketing at the CBOE, and previously was a vice president of DLJ/Pershing, where he was responsible for options trading and U.S. trading floors.

His appointment fills a vacancy on the board.

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German Bank Goes Live With Algo Collateral

Landesbank Baden-Wurttemberg went live with Algo Collateral for managing all of its over-the-counter derivatives margining requirements. Upcoming changes to regulatory requirements and credit lending and credit worthiness in 2005 were behind the decision to use Algo Collateral as the foundation for all banking activities, states the release.

The implementation was completed on time and on budget and was able to scale operationally, states Andreas Beck, head of back-office derivatives, in the release. "Algo Collateral has already allowed the bank expand to both trading volume and counterparties on a collateralized basis, and we're planning for added business in the future," states Beck, in the release.

In addition, the vendor announced that Algo Collateral's automated interface was integrated with the LeDIS legal database application. LeDIS -- which was in part developed by VoB-Service GmbH, a service provider for German public financial institutions and a partner of Algorithmics. LeDIS is used to import agreement terms and create the appropriate aster and collateral agreement necessary for controlling margin processes.

Algo Collateral is provided by Algorithmics, which was acquired by Fitch Group in January 2005; Algorithmics has been combined with Fitch Risk.

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Corporation of Lloyds Signs Outsourcing Agreement With ADP Wilco's Tarot

The Corporation of Lloyds signed a multiyear outsourcing agreement to use Automatic Data Processing, Inc.'s subsidiary, ADP Wilco, for its retail and private-client transaction-processing platform, Tarot. Lloyd's will use Tarot on a service bureau basis.

The Corporation of Lloyd's has used an on-site version of Tarot to support its Funds at Lloyd's management services to Lloyd's Names since 1999. Tarot handled the settlement and other market related functions for members' assets held as collateral against their underwriting business. Under the new agreement, these processes will be migrated to the Tarot service bureau.

Tarot also will support remote access for member agents and corporate members; provide extended corporate actions functionality; register members' assets against other members' liabilities; and provide an extended reference data repository.

The business case for using Tarot is based on improving and extending client services while reducing expenses through a variable cost model and mitigating risk, states an executive with Corporation of Lloyds in the release.