ISITC Europe and Genbounty Partner to Offer Independent Audits Aligned with EU AI Act

In a move to support regulated firms across Europe, ISITC Europe CIC has forged a partnership with AI compliance platform Genbounty to deliver third-party AI audits and accreditation. The objective: help organizations build credible AI governance programs and ensure alignment with evolving regulatory standards.

Tackling the AI Governance Gap

As AI deployments proliferate in financial services and capital markets, many firms struggle to translate high-level rules into operational controls. While the EU AI Act defines a compliance baseline, supervisory expectations vary across jurisdictions. In the UK, the FCA’s stated approach is technology agnostic and outcomes-focused, applying existing regulatory frameworks to firms’ use of AI rather than creating AI-specific rules. This stance is reflected across its AI Update, press material and speeches—and operationalised via initiatives like AI Live Testing.

Gary Wright, Director of Industry Affairs and one of ISITC Europe’s founders, underscores the challenge. He argues that firms need clarity on how their AI components affect risk, controls, and accountability. Under this partnership, “ISITC Europe as a not-for profit community interest company will act as an independent resource for members to help manage their AI components and ensure compliance.” The offering will include audits, access to verified AI testers, workshops, benchmark reports, and post-market monitoring.

From Genbounty’s side, co-founder Rob Morel positioned the platform’s role as providing ongoing regulatory insight. He explained that the system will keep users apprised of changes and help them understand “AI components utilised across enterprises.” Through the MOU, Genbounty’s tools and vetted testers will be made available to ISITC Europe’s membership.

What This Enables — and What Still Must Be Built

This collaboration is not simply a new service launch, but a signal of maturation in the AI compliance space. By offering independent assessments, it helps fill a gap between regulation and implementation, particularly for institutions lacking internal AI expertise.

Still, several challenges lie ahead:

• Operationalizing audits. Translating compliance results into practical remediation plans will require domain experience in AI, model risk management, and financial workflows.
• Maintaining independence. As audits are performed by a provider with commercial ties, perceptions of impartiality must be managed.
• Evolving rules. The EU AI Act itself is dynamic; firms will need to continually adapt their controls as standards are refined.

Nonetheless, for firms seeking credible third-party validation of AI governance, this new path offers a clearer route than doing so in isolation.

S&P Global Integrates AI Document Analysis on Salesforce AgentExchange

S&P Global has made its S&P Capital IQ Pro Document Intelligence available to users of Salesforce’s AgentExchange, integrating Generative AI directly into customer relationship management workflows.

S&P Global said this will simplify how customers analyse complex company documents, boosting productivity and enabling clients to make quicker, data-informed decisions.

The new integration builds on S&P Global’s partnership with the Salesforce Independent Software Vendor (ISV) programme, and is accessible through Salesforce’s marketplace for agentic AI tools.

ACA Group Introduces a New Framework to Strengthen Buy-Side Market Abuse Controls

Amid growing regulatory pressure and heightened investor scrutiny, ACA Group has unveiled a new Market Abuse Risk Framework aimed at helping UK and European buy-side firms identify, manage, and monitor market abuse risks across trading activities.

The initiative arrives as the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) steps up enforcement with a five-year strategy that prioritises market abuse and accountability under the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SM&CR). Recent insider trading cases and the regulator’s July 2025 consultation on SM&CR reforms have further raised expectations for demonstrable, firm-wide conduct frameworks aligned with MAR and MiFID II.

Developed by ACA practitioners with extensive buy-side experience, the framework integrates surveillance, conduct, and control reviews into a single, regulator-ready model. It maps market abuse offences across asset classes, supports policy and procedure assessments, and evaluates surveillance technologies to ensure alignment with firms’ risk profiles. The solution also includes a proprietary question bank drawn from ACA’s client work and provides practical guidance on maintaining and updating the framework over time.

“What truly differentiates this solution is the depth of expertise driving it,” said Raj Somal, Partner at ACA Group. “Our clients are navigating increasingly-complex trading, and jurisdictional and infrastructure environments, and often without a clear, actionable view of their market abuse risk. This isn’t just a health check; it’s a dynamic, evolving programme that firms can use to strengthen governance, meet evolving regulatory and business expectations, and build investor confidence.”

The Market Abuse Risk Framework complements ACA’s broader compliance ecosystem, including its ComplianceAlpha® platform, which offers surveillance and monitoring tools spanning trade and communications activity, conflicts of interest, expert networks, and research oversight. Combined with advisory and managed services, these tools enable firms to remediate findings, enhance governance, and maintain ongoing compliance amid shifting regulatory expectations.

ACA will host a live session on 23 October 2025 to discuss the rising focus on market abuse, surveillance practices, and senior manager accountability across the buy-side sector.

SIX Signs Seven-Year Strategic Partnership with Barclays

Financial data provider SIX has signed a seven-year strategic partnership with Barclays. The agreement will provide all divisions of the global banking group, including its investment banking, retail, wealth management, and corporate services, with access to SIX’s comprehensive suite of financial data products. The partnership is intended to support Barclays’ international growth and drive cost efficiencies, aligning with the bank’s wider strategic transformation, with a goal to reduce costs by £2bn by 2026.

The collaboration builds on a longstanding relationship and will see Barclays contributing to the product strategy and development of new data and analytical products from SIX. In return for providing access to services such as real-time market data, wealth management capabilities, and regulatory reporting solutions, the partnership supports SIX’s own plans to expand, by helping strengthen the provider’s presence in key regions like the US and Asia, where Barclays has a significant footprint.

Openmarkets Group Adopts Eventus for Trade Surveillance

Eventus, the trade surveillance and financial risk solutions provider, has announced that Australian wealth management fintech Openmarkets Group (OMG) has adopted the Eventus Validus platform to provide comprehensive trade surveillance across all of its business.

The Validus platform will integrate into Openmarkets’ existing infrastructure to monitor all trading activity. The firm is responsible for clearing more than AUD $2 billion in annualised equities trades each month, spread across over 99,000 accounts.

Openmarkets selected Eventus after considering multiple providers, citing the platform’s advanced automation, cost-efficiency, and the availability of local support in Australia. The ability to customise the platform to generate targeted compliance alerts was also cited as a significant factor in the decision.

Blue Ocean Technologies Integrates Overnight Trading Data with NYSE Cloud Streaming

Capital markets fintech Blue Ocean Technologies has integrated its real-time overnight trading data into the New York Stock Exchange’s (NYSE) Cloud Streaming service. Blue Ocean Technologies is the operator of Blue Ocean ATS, an alternative trading system that facilitates overnight price discovery and trade execution.

The NYSE will add Blue Ocean’s top of book and last sale real-time data as an additional channel, available alongside the existing NYSE Best Quote and Trades (BQT) consolidated market data feed. This collaboration is intended to provide more convenient access to trading and risk management opportunities for investors operating outside of traditional US market hours.

The service particularly targets the Asia Pacific region, where the Blue Ocean trading session overlaps significantly with local business hours. Through this integration, the company aims to add value to its products and services in Asia, which it identifies as a major growth area for market data demand.

NeoXam Opens New Office in India

FinTech software provider NeoXam has opened a new office in Chennai, India, the French company expands its reconciliation-as-a-service product.

The move follows NeoXam’s acquisition of artificial intelligence-powered reconciliation company EZOPS, which initially opened the Chennai hub in 2022.

Private Markets ESG Data Startup Novata Acquires Atlas Metrics

Novata, an ESG data startup for private markets participants, has acquired European sustainability performance and reporting platform Atlas Metrics.

The purchase is targeted at helping New York-based Novata expand internationally, leveraging Atlas’ ESG compliance and sustainability performance management platform for banking and corporate clients.

ICE Announces Strategic Investment in Prediction Market Platform Polymarket

Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (ICE) has announced a strategic investment of up to $2 billion in Polymarket, the prediction market and information platform. The investment is based on a pre-investment valuation of approximately $8 billion for Polymarket, which allows users to trade on the probability of events across markets, politics, sport and culture. The consideration will be paid in cash and is not expected to materially impact ICE’s financial results for 2025.

As part of the agreement, ICE will become a global distributor of Polymarket’s event-driven data, providing its customers with sentiment indicators on topics of market relevance. The two companies have also agreed to partner on future tokenisation initiatives.

Founded in 2020 by Shayne Coplan, Polymarket enables users to buy and sell shares of potential outcomes, with trades matched through smart contracts. ICE will provide further details on the investment during its third-quarter earnings call, which is scheduled for 30 October 2025.

Exegy and LDA Technologies Launch Exegy Nexus Appliance for High-Performance Market Data Processing

Exegy, the provider of capital markets technology, has partnered with network solutions specialist LDA Technologies to launch Exegy Nexus, a custom-engineered appliance. The new platform is designed to centralise and scale market data processing, aiming to reduce server count and power consumption for financial firms. It combines FPGA acceleration with embedded Layer 1 switching to deliver high-throughput feed handling and deterministic sub-microsecond latency.

Developed in collaboration with LDA and with input from global banks, brokers, and market makers, the Nexus appliance is built on a new architecture designed by LDA for scalability and efficiency. Its technical features include a high core count AMD Turin platform, support for up to eight FPGA accelerator cards, and embedded Layer 1 Ethernet connectivity for low-latency throughput in a compact 1U or 2U chassis.

The Exegy Nexus appliance is available for order immediately, with production delivery scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter of 2025.