Senior Securities Finance Trader

About Northern Trust As a global leader in innovative wealth management, asset servicing, asset management and banking services, Northern Trust (Nasdaq: NTRS) is proud to guide the world’s most successful individuals, families, corporations and institutions. Since 1889, we have aligned our efforts with our three guiding Principles That Endure:
Service, Expertise, and Integrity. Together, they reflect the three cornerstones of business conduct which we strive to instill in our employees, whom we call partners, and to provide to our clients and the communities we serve worldwide. With more than 135 years of financial experience and over 24,000 partners, we serve the world’s most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.

Role/ Department:

We are seeking an experienced Equity Agency Securities Lending and Total Return Swap Trader to join Northern Trust's London-based Global Securities Finance Trading team. The role will be responsible for managing and optimising institutional client lending portfolios, executing equity securities lending transactions across a diverse global beneficial owner base, and supporting the continuous build out of Northern Trust's equity total return swap offering.

The successful candidate will work closely with borrowers, broker-dealers, swap counter parties, and various internal functions. The role requires a strong understanding of equity markets, agency securities lending, equity finance, collateral optimisation, corporate actions, total return swaps, and the risk management framework required to support a client-focused, securities finance programme.

As part of a globally integrated trading team, the individual will be expected to deliver attractive risk-adjusted returns for clients, identify new lending and financing opportunities, strengthen borrower relationships, provide market intelligence and thought leadership, and contribute to the ongoing growth and innovation of Northern Trust's Securities Finance business. The successful candidate will combine strong commercial acumen with a fiduciary mindset, ensuring client outcomes, risk management, regulatory compliance and operational excellence remain central to all trading and portfolio management decisions.

The key responsibilities of the role include:

Agency Securities Lending Trading:

Manage day-to-day trading activity across an institutional equity securities lending portfolio, with responsibility for maximising client revenue while operating within approved risk, collateral, liquidity and counter party guidelines.

Develop and maintain strong relationships with borrowers, including prime brokers, banks and market intermediaries, to optimise lending demand and portfolio performance.

Identify and monetise intrinsic lending opportunities across general collateral, specials, corporate actions, index events, rights issues, tender offers, and other market-driven demand opportunities.

Monitor utilisation, fee levels, borrower demand, short interest, market liquidity, collateral usage and revenue performance to ensure the lending portfolio is optimised on a risk-adjusted basis.

Partner with sales, client executives and product teams to identify and build incremental lending opportunities, support client reviews and contribute to new business opportunities.

Prepare market commentary, trading colour, performance attribution and management reporting for internal stakeholders, beneficial owners and prospective clients.

Ensure all trading activity meets best execution, fiduciary, counter party credit and client guideline requirements.

Equity Total Return Swap Trading:

Support the continuous build-out, execution and management of an equity total return swap product offering for institutional and alternative investment clients. Comparable VP equity swap roles involve acting as the primary point of contact for top-tier funds, managing swap trading books, and supporting the development of local or regional swap offerings.

Price, book, monitor and manage equity swap transactions across client portfolios, ensuring trades are aligned with client guidelines, internal risk limits and applicable market regulations.

Monitor and manage financial risk within the equity swap trading book, including delta exposure, financing risk, dividend exposure, corporate action risk, liquidity risk, counter party exposure and P&L volatility.

Ensure swap and hedge bookings are accurately captured and reconciled, with daily P&L, delta and exception reporting reviewed and resolved on a timely basis.

Coordinate with sales and relationship managers to help support client onboarding, trade execution, lifecycle management, resets, unwinds, amendments and ongoing service requirements.

Work with operations, technology, legal, risk and compliance teams to enhance the equity swap platform, improve workflow automation, strengthen controls and support product scalability.

Contribute to product development, including new market access, financing structures, pricing…