Two banks can't agree on fourth-grade math | Alex Elliott

Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) is joined by Alex Elliott (@alexpotato), who has spent his career in SRE and operations roles at financial firms ranging from ten-person fintechs to global investment banks, to discuss what the back office actually does all day. They cover the life cycle of a trade: execution, clearing, settlement, and the constant reconciliation between counterparties who don't quite agree on what happened. Alex recounts the Friday afternoon when twenty million shares went out to the street instead of five, and Patrick explains what happens between 4:15 and 4:30 when one bank owes another $36 million and the person who owns that process is on vacation.

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Full transcript available here: https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/two-banks-cant-agree-on-fourth-grade-math/

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Links:

Alex’s website: https://alexpotato.com/ –

Timestamps: