Fintech company EquiLend reported the restoration of key services, including trading and post-trading solutions, more than a week after an unauthorized access incident caused an outage. In late January, EquiLend disclosed the security breach, leading to the temporary shutdown of some systems.
Its Next Generation Trading platform, managing over $2.4 trillion in monthly transactions, caters to a diverse clientele of around 200 asset owners, lending banks, broker-dealers, and hedge funds. Wall Street heavyweights, including Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, J.P. Morgan, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, are partial owners of EquiLend.
Market participants had to resort to manual processing in the aftermath of the EquiLend hack, but the impact was limited. However, there were concerns about clients potentially missing crucial regulatory reporting obligations, risking disruptions to risk and capital ratios.
The Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) spokesperson noted the outage at Equilend has impacted specific automated securities lending services.
As needed, market participants have adjusted by moving to existing manual processes, with limited impact observed. The sector is monitoring for any ongoing issues and coordinating through our established incident response processes and resilience mechanisms to ensure firms have the information they need to mitigate potential impacts.
Despite these challenges, with the restoration of services, experts anticipate the resolution of data-related issues and timely regulatory filings.