Smarsh Expands Solutions for AI, Cyber, and Third-Party Risk

Smarsh has announced expanded communications supervision, web archiving, cyber compliance and vendor risk management capabilities for small and mid-sized financial services firms. The changes include planned capture of Claude Cowork interactions within Professional Archive, alongside tools for reviewing communications, monitoring device security and documenting third-party oversight.

Smarsh already captures Claude Enterprise communications through the Claude Compliance API. Planned Cowork support will extend coverage to additional Claude-enabled workflows, bringing those interactions into Professional Archive alongside other regulated communications. Firms will be able to apply retention, supervision, investigation and legal-hold processes to the captured records. The announcement does not specify a release date for Cowork support.

Within Professional Archive, Smarsh Intelligent Supervision combines three artificial intelligence tools. Noise Reduction Agent reduces predictable, low-value alerts; Misconduct Detection Agent identifies behavioural and contextual risk signals beyond keywords and lexicons, including across multilingual communications; and AI Assistant helps reviewers summarise, translate and investigate messages. Smarsh says human reviewers retain responsibility for final supervision decisions.

Further planned enhancements include natural-language search, expanded AI policy coverage and additional queue and search controls. The search capability will translate users’ requests into search criteria they can review and confirm. Smarsh describes these changes as intended to make supervision and investigations more targeted.

Web Archive is expanding support for dynamic and browser-generated content, with a new user interface. The changes aim to help firms preserve searchable records of changing web content. Cyber Compliance assesses high-level security attributes of personal and other unmanaged devices that access sensitive business applications. Smarsh says it evaluates those attributes rather than private content, limiting collection of personal information.

Vendor Risk Management centralises vendor inventories, assessments, risk scores, remediation and reassessment histories. Its Vendor Breach Monitoring capability helps firms identify relevant breaches between scheduled reviews and begin a documented response, supplementing periodic due diligence.

“Small and mid-sized financial services firms need a practical way to understand what is changing across their communications, devices, and third parties without adding unnecessary complexity,” said Kamesh Tumsi, Chief Product Officer at Smarsh.

The announcement combines existing functionality, expanding coverage and planned enhancements. Alongside Cowork capture, natural-language search, expanded AI policy coverage and enhanced queue and search controls remain described as planned capabilities.

Plenitude Joins Skills Compact to Address AI Oversight in Economic Crime

Plenitude has joined the Financial Services Skills Compact as a Supporter, linking workforce development to the skills needed to oversee artificial intelligence (AI) in economic crime controls. The specialist economic crime firm argues that staff must retain the judgement to challenge automated decisions and remain accountable for control effectiveness as technology takes on more work.

The Compact, led by the Financial Services Skills Commission (FSSC), brings government and industry together to address skills gaps across financial services. Supported by HM Treasury, Skills England, TheCityUK and the City of London Corporation, the initiative launched in July 2026. It asks regulated signatories to appoint a senior executive accountable for closing skills gaps and publish progress annually.

For economic crime teams, Plenitude identifies a need to interpret and challenge outputs from AI, machine learning, graph analytics, behavioural analytics and automation. As these technologies take on more detection, triage and analysis, staff must recognise when systems are not working as intended. The firm views skills development and AI adoption as a control issue as well as a workforce issue.

Alan Paterson, Founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Plenitude, questioned whether access to AI provides a useful measure of workforce capability: “Most firms can tell you how many of their people have access to AI. Very few can tell you whether those people are getting better at the work they remain accountable for.”

Paterson also raised the challenge of developing expertise when AI performs work through which staff have traditionally learnt. He identified critical thinking, judgement, problem solving and creativity as skills built through practice, and said Plenitude was examining how to develop its next generation of talent as that work changes.

Louise Brett, Plenitude’s CEO, connected skills development to accountability for technology: “Technology will only be as effective as the people who deploy it, challenge it and remain accountable for it.”

The FSSC’s first phase of research for HM Treasury, A Workforce Transformed, examined potential task automation across financial services and pressure on the future supply of highly skilled workers. A second phase considers how the sector should respond, with recommendations due in early 2027.

Vermiculus Launches VeriIndex for Real-Time Index Calculation and Management

Vermiculus has launched VeriIndex, a real-time index calculation and management engine designed to help exchanges and marketplaces develop and operate specialised indices across traditional and emerging asset classes. The platform combines continuous index calculation, corporate action processing and index administration within a single system, initially supporting price-return and total-return indices.

VeriIndex calculates and publishes index values using live market data, with standardised interfaces for distributing results. A next-business-day simulation capability allows operators to assess and correct the impact of scheduled corporate actions and index changes before implementation. Its configurable architecture supports additional calculation methodologies, instrument types and pricing capabilities, enabling operators to expand their index offerings as market requirements evolve.

The system integrates natively with Vermiculus’ VeriTrade exchange trading platform but can also operate independently alongside third-party trading and post-trade infrastructure.

The launch extends Vermiculus’ market infrastructure portfolio as demand grows for indices covering emerging products, including tokenised assets, perpetuals and prediction markets.

DTCC Research Highlights Post-Trade Automation Gaps Ahead of Europe’s T+1 Transition

New research from DTCC and ValueExchange has highlighted significant gaps in European post-trade automation as the industry prepares to move to T+1 settlement in October 2027. The report finds that settlement volumes across Europe increased by 15% in 2025, while failed trades rose by 21%, adding pressure to already fragmented operational processes. Only 33% of European middle offices have invested in automated standing settlement instruction (SSI) storage and exchange, while approximately 68% of firms still rely on some manual trade matching. Just 62% appear prepared for upcoming place of settlement (PSET) requirements.

With T+1 compressing settlement timelines by approximately 83%, the research calls for greater standardisation, automated instruction flows and more consistent trade data across middle- and back-office systems. DTCC argues that existing matching infrastructure and reference data utilities provide a foundation for improving settlement efficiency, reducing exceptions and strengthening operational resilience ahead of the transition.

Xceptor Expands Japanese Operations with Second Megabank Partnership

Xceptor has expanded its investment in Japan following the selection of its data automation platform by another major Japanese bank, bringing its client relationships to two of the country’s three megabanks. The latest implementation, delivered in partnership with local technology specialist GRCS, will use Xceptor’s sovereign-grade SaaS platform to streamline fragmented post-trade workflows and reduce reliance on manual processes.

The company has also appointed Airi Iwamoto as Key Account Director and Satomi Hirono as Principal, Client Success, to support Japanese financial institutions, including banks and trading houses.

Its expansion focuses on automating operational processes such as trade affirmations, confirmations, end-user computing remediation and fund services. A Japanese-language interface is also being introduced.

FIX Trading Community Calls for Clearer Market Data Standards in UK Equities Reform

The FIX Trading Community has called for greater consistency, transparency and operational resilience in UK equity markets in responses to two Financial Conduct Authority consultations covering market structure reform and the proposed equity consolidated tape. Its recommendations include more granular liquidity reporting that distinguishes trading phases, execution mechanisms and genuinely addressable volumes, alongside clearer identification of automated and manual off-venue transactions.

FIX also advocates aligning UK trade flags more closely with EU standards, identifying technical and non-addressable trades, and introducing standardised, machine-readable communications for market outages.

For the consolidated tape, the association recommends keeping trading venue and systematic internaliser quote data separate, while prioritising completeness, reliability and resilience as trading models and operating hours evolve. FIX additionally cautions against extending transparency requirements to complex synthetic equity transactions without clearly defined scope, identifiers and assessment of regulatory implications.

The proposals aim to improve market data usability while reducing operational complexity for trading firms and data consumers.

Precisely Configures MCP for SAP Workflow Automation Integration

Precisely has released its Automate Model Context Protocol Server and native OData support in Precisely Automate, enabling artificial intelligence assistants and applications to interact with SAP’s automation workflows through a standards-based interface while supporting specific architectural requirements.

The company said the MCP comes as organisations face pressure to move away from legacy scripting approaches toward standard application programming interface integrations as they modernise environments and expand AI adoption.

“Organisations shouldn’t have to choose between accelerating AI adoption today and preparing for tomorrow’s architecture,” said Ashwin Ramachandran, senior vice president of product management at Precisely.

The Model Context Protocol Server exposes existing scripts and workflows as artificial intelligence-callable tools, providing a standards-based connection to automation platforms.

This release builds on previous investments in MCP support across the portfolio to connect trusted data and automation workflows to artificial intelligence through open standards.

SimCorp Axioma Risk Software Adopted by Canada’s Fiera Capital

Asset manager Fiera Capital has selected SimCorp’s Axioma Risk software for risk analytics and portfolio construction.

The integration provides the Canada-based firm with risk management systems and factor models for investment strategies. Axioma Portfolio Optimizer assists investment teams to construct portfolios and align decisions with client objectives.

“With Axioma, Fiera Capital is strengthening how risk insights are embedded throughout the investment process,” said Allen Zimmerman, senior managing director and head of americas at SimCorp.

The company’s data shows that half of investment managers rank risk management among priorities within their technology strategy.

EY and Watershed Collaborate on Sustainability Metrics for Investors, Regulators

Sustainability artificial intelligence company Watershed has forged an Aliance with Ernst & Young to assist companies in measuring and reporting environmental impact to satisfy investor expectations and regulatory demands.

The collaboration pairs Watershed’s platform with EY’s advisory, implementation and programme management services.

Derek Przybylo, EY-Watershed Alliance Leader, EY US said: “The alliance… helps organisations move from their sustainability goals to measurable action. The EY-Watershed Alliance helps clients strengthen emissions measurement, automate reporting and build scalable sustainability solutions that support their decarbonization initiatives and regulatory readiness.”

The partnership delivers end-to-end support covering data collection, emissions measurement, product carbon footprint metrics and sustainability advisory services, the companies said.

The initiative builds on prior digital identity work with the CARIN Alliance, expanding client access to automated reporting and decarbonisation planning tools.

S&P Global’s Visible Alpha Now Accessible via MCP

S&P Global’s Visible Alpha data is now available through the S&P Global AI Data Portal, enabling artificial intelligence applications supporting the Model Context Protocol to access broker consensus estimates, financial line items and segment data directly.

The integration provides direct, structured query access to extract information from sell-side broker models.

Peter Licursi, Head of AI and Growth, Kensho Data & Platforms at S&P Global Market Intelligence said: “With Visible Alpha’s rich sell-side data now available through the S&P Global AI Data Portal, customers can move from a headline consensus figure to the drivers underneath it in a single query, with answers grounded in verifiable S&P Global data.

“Because it sits alongside our company intelligence and credit ratings data, customers can assess the market’s expectations, fundamentals and credit ratings information in the same workflow,” Licursi added.

Users can access this financial information through third-party platforms including GPT, Gemini, Claude and Copilot. The update builds on previous launches within the portal, following the recent inclusion of credit ratings data and adaptive retrieval capabilities.