Securities Finance Times: The Free-to-Read Voice of Securities Lending, Repo and Collateral
Securities Finance Times is a Beckenham-based news service reporting on the global securities finance industry — securities borrowing and lending, repo, collateral management and prime brokerage. Published by Black Knight Media Ltd, it combines a fortnightly magazine with a daily news website, and describes itself as the go-to industry publication for news, views and reviews and, with its accompanying website, the only free-to-read securities finance resource around. Its strapline promises global securities finance news and commentary, and its coverage is used by the banks, borrowers, lenders, beneficial owners and technology firms that make up this specialist market.
Securities finance is the plumbing of capital markets: it supplies the borrowing that supports settlement and short selling, the repo financing that funds dealer inventories, and the collateral flows on which derivatives and clearing depend. It is intensely technical and largely invisible to outsiders. Securities Finance Times exists to report it in its own terms, for the practitioners whose daily work it is.
Overview
The publication is produced in digital and printed formats, completely free of charge, to keep readers up to date with news and opinions from industry leaders, regulators and associations. News is organised into sections including industry news, technology, people moves, regulation, buy side, repo, derivatives and ESG, supported by features, interviews, data features, country profiles, a directory, a glossary and an extensive magazine archive.
Securities Finance Times is one of three Black Knight Media titles, alongside Asset Servicing Times and Captive Insurance Times. Since 2018 the brand has also stood behind the Securities Finance Symposium, which has grown from a single event into a global series, and since 2021 its Industry Excellence Awards have recognised firms and individuals across the market — extensions that have made the title a convenor of its industry as well as a reporter of it.
History and Founding
Black Knight Media was established in 2010, and Securities Finance Times dates from the same founding period, publishing from 2010 and building its archive continuously from that year. The title was originally known as Securities Lending Times — articles from February 2011, announcing Katie Wildeman's arrival as associate publisher from the custody and fund administration publishing world, use the earlier name — before adopting the broader Securities Finance Times name as its coverage encompassed repo, collateral and prime services alongside lending.
The founding publisher is Justin Lawson, who reported and fronted the title's announcements in its early years and remains its publisher. Growth was steady rather than spectacular: a fortnightly magazine rhythm, daily online news, annual special issues and handbooks — the 2018 archive alone lists a Securities Financing Technology Regulation annual, a collateral annual, a Nordic annual, an Asia handbook and daily editions produced for the industry's ISLA and RMA conferences — and a team based throughout in Beckenham, just outside central London.
Ownership and Leadership
Securities Finance Times is published by Black Knight Media Ltd, a company registered in England, whose recent site notices give a registered office at Unit 23 Metro Business Centre, Kangley Bridge Road, Sydenham, while its editorial team is described in recruitment and industry coverage as based in Beckenham. Publisher and co-founder Justin Lawson leads the business and presents its awards and events.
Editorial leadership has been shared across the Black Knight Media group. Rebecca Butcher was appointed editor across Securities Lending Times, Asset Servicing Times, Captive Insurance Times and the group's other titles, having previously served as acting editor, and the company continues to recruit reporters at junior and reporter level to the Beckenham team — Sophie Downes, for example, joined Securities Finance Times as a junior reporter in November 2023. Reporters are expected to source exclusive news, write features for the fortnightly magazine, interview industry executives and travel internationally to cover events in Asia, the United States and Europe.
Coverage Areas
Core coverage follows the market's structure. Securities borrowing and lending news covers agent lenders, beneficial owners, borrowers and the data and technology vendors that connect them. Repo coverage follows financing markets, tri-party services and the dealers and platforms that intermediate them, while collateral management reporting covers optimisation, segregation, clearing and the regulatory demands — including securities financing transaction regulation — that have reshaped the business since the financial crisis.
Prime brokerage, derivatives, buy-side activity and regulation each have dedicated coverage, and people moves are reported in detail: in a relationship market with a relatively small number of senior practitioners, appointments at banks, platforms and vendors are significant news. Technology coverage, from trading platforms to post-trade and digital assets, has grown with the market itself, reflected in the brand's dedicated technology symposium and in special annual issues devoted to technology.
Services and Distribution
Like its sister titles, Securities Finance Times is free to read in both its fortnightly magazine and website formats — a distribution model the publisher identifies as unique in the sector, supported by advertising, sponsorship and events rather than subscriptions. The magazine is collated in issues designed to inform and educate, while the website carries breaking and daily news, the full archive by year and issue, and reference resources including the directory and glossary.
The audience is global and institutional: securities lending and repo desks, custodians and agent lenders, pension funds and asset managers as beneficial owners, prime brokers, exchanges and clearing houses, regulators and industry associations, and the technology and data firms that serve them. Conference daily editions for events such as ISLA's annual conference and the RMA's securities lending conference show the title distributing directly into the rooms where that audience gathers.
Events: The Securities Finance Symposium
Launched in 2018, the Securities Finance Symposium has grown from a single event into a leading global series, now held annually in the United States, the Middle East and the United Kingdom. The symposium brings together senior market participants to explore key developments, share expertise and connect with peers, and the brand's events footprint also includes a technology symposium described as the industry's first event dedicated to technology for the securities finance market, with sessions in locations including Dubai, Boston and London.
Events have changed what the title is. A publisher that convenes its market's senior figures gains reporting access and commercial relationships that a news-only operation cannot match, and the symposium content — panels on regulation, collateral, technology and market structure — feeds back into the magazine's features and interviews. The events also anchor the title's presence in the Middle East and the United States, two of its most important growth audiences.
Industry Excellence Awards
In 2021 Black Knight Media expanded its programme to include the Securities Finance Industry Excellence Awards, alongside the asset servicing awards launched the same year, recognising excellence across the industry. The awards are presented as merit-based, with a judging panel formed by independent industry professionals, and they cover firms, individuals and departments across securities finance, from lending and repo providers to technology and ESG initiatives.
The awards have become established enough for winners to feature them in their own career and corporate announcements — a former Rising Star winner's move to a digital asset custodian, for example, was reported with the award as a credential — and shortlists draw entrants from major dealers, platforms and service providers internationally. For the title, the awards provide an annual, judged snapshot of who the market regards as its leaders, complementing its daily reporting.
Digital Platforms
The website, securitiesfinancetimes.com, is the title's daily home, carrying news by section, the magazine and archive, features and interviews, editor's picks, podcasts and videos, and listings for its events and awards. Reference tools — the directory of industry contacts and the glossary of securities finance terms — serve newcomers and specialists alike, and the archive, running from 2010 to the present, is a substantial historical record of the market.
Digital channels extend the brand's community role. The publisher also supports its local community in Beckenham — supplying kit to a local girls' football team and fundraising, including a £12,100 donation to the mental health charity Mind raised around its 2021 awards — activity that underlines the small, owner-led character of the company behind a title read on trading floors worldwide.
Notable Work
The title's notable contribution is continuity. Through more than fifteen years of fortnightly issues and daily news, it has documented the transformation of securities finance from a back-office lending business into a regulated, data-driven and increasingly automated market: the arrival of transaction reporting, the growth of peer-to-peer and pledge structures, the entry of digital assets and tokenised collateral, and the market's stress episodes and reforms. Its country profiles, data features and conference dailies give that record a geographic breadth that matches the market's global nature.
Its reporting of people and firms is also part of the industry's institutional memory. Appointments, platform launches, mandate wins and record platform volumes — such as technology providers passing trillion-dollar daily balance milestones — are recorded in its pages as they happen, creating the reference trail that practitioners, recruiters and researchers use to reconstruct who did what in the market, and when.
Recent Developments
Recent development has centred on the events and awards programme: the symposium series running across the US, Middle East and UK, the technology symposium, and the annual Industry Excellence Awards, alongside continued daily coverage of regulation, repo market developments, digital assets and ESG in securities finance. Recruitment to the Beckenham reporting team has continued as the group maintains its three titles.
For worldnm.com, Securities Finance Times stands as the flagship example of Black Knight Media's free-to-read specialist model: founded with the company in 2010, published from Beckenham for a global institutional readership, and now combining a fortnightly magazine, a daily news site, a global symposium series and industry awards under one brand. Its news, magazine, directory and events are published at securitiesfinancetimes.com.
