The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) New Zealand has confirmed that it will engage with regulated firms and market participants exclusively via remote technology for the foreseeable future. “Our offices remain open and we encourage people to contact us with concerns or questions, as well as any suggestions on how we can assist you,” said the regulator in a statement.

GFT, a global IT services and software engineering provider, has been designated as a global Google Anthos Service Partner. Google Anthos is an open source, hybrid modernisation platform, based on Kubernetes and providing a ‘single pane of glass’ enabling clients to manage and monitor an entire hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructure. It enables users to easily move applications and microservices around their technology estate and across multi-cloud environments with no hardware lock-in. To date, Google has partnered with a limited selection of third parties to drive the platform forward, of which GFT becomes the latest.

Compliance.ai has announced comprehensive coverage for insurance-related regulatory content on its platform, which automates the complex steps within the regulatory compliance process for banks, financial services and insurance companies. The move comes in response to a rapid influx of new claims and actions in the US as a result of COVID-19, especially in the US, where insurance companies are struggling to keep track of the number and complexity of regulatory changes they must comply with. “We’ve found many regulatory changes addressing banking, financial services and Insurance are related, and our clients have requested coverage across that spectrum,” says Kayvan Alikhani, CEO and co-founder.

ICE Futures US has granted temporary relief to intermediaries from the obligation to comply with certain requirements, including from the requirement to make and keep records of oral communications, as long as a written record is provided instead. The exchange has also granted relief from any requirement to record the date and time by time-stamp or other timing device, provided that a record of the date and time is kept to the nearest minute, for example by instant message or email. Previously, the exchange confirmed that floor brokers and impacted intermediaries would be allowed to work from different locations.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has supported these measures, issuing its own no-action letters confirming relief from both oral communications recording and time-stamping for brokers, swap dealers, forex dealers, and members of designated contract markets and swap execution facilities.

Polish asset manager Skarbiec TFI has chosen NeoXam’s Density portfolio management solution for its 42 funds and sub-funds. Density will be the backbone solution for the entire asset management group, covering all calculations for the funds, as well as pre and post-trade compliance. Where previously the group had used excel to monitor its funds portfolios, Density will allow them to have an overview of the current and historic performance of the funds, increasing efficiency and allowing them to manage their funds more effectively. Skarbiec TFI marks NeoXam’s first client win in Poland, as part of its planned expansion into Central and Eastern Europe following the hire of Philipp Sfeir, an ex-head Head of Data at a top-four Swiss bank. Poland is the second largest hub for asset management in Eastern Europe.

LexisNexis Risk Solutions has acquired Arizona-based Emailage, a fraud prevention and risk management solutions provider that provides fraud risk scoring solutions based on email intelligence. Its fraud prevention solutions assess fraud risks by utilizing email address metadata, a differentiated global contributory network, and machine learning algorithms. Emailage, which has established market presence in the US, Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific, will form part of the Business Services Group of LexisNexis. The two firms already have an established commercial partnership offering email risk assessment to global clients.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has relaxed rules around voice and telephone recording for swap execution facilities up until the end of June, along with relief to designated contract markets regarding audit trail and related requirements over the same period. The spread of coronavirus has caused compliance with certain CFTC requirements to be particularly challenging or impossible because of displacement of personnel from normal business sites due to social distancing and other measures.

“These prudent, targeted, and temporary actions will help facilitate orderly trading and liquidity in our derivatives markets,” said CFTC Chairman Heath P. Tarbert.

All derivative products listed on Borsa Istanbul Derivatives Market (VIOP) are now available for trading through Trading Technologies’ trading platform, according to an announcement this week. This gives clients the ability to trade the exchange’s derivatives, including foreign exchange, commodities, indices, and interest rate futures and options on futures, whilst utilising the suite of tools provided by Trading Technologies. “This represents an exciting opportunity for Trading Technologies, as this connection to Borsa Istanbul brings us into a new region,” says Steve Stewart, Managing Director, Sales EMEA.

The European trade repository REGIS-TR will collaborate with GLMX, provider of pre- and post-trade technology solutions for repurchase agreements and secured lending, to provide an interoperable, full-service reporting solution for SFTR requirements. Together, they will offer a hosted solution that leverages existing industry data workflows to lower cost and operational burden of SFTR. GLMX has been testing with REGIS-TR and market participants to design a straight-through processing reporting solution, and clients will be able to use GLMX’s pre- and post-trade platform services and then delegate their reporting to GLMX to report their securities finance transactions to REGIS-TR under SFTR.

Euromoney TRADEDAta has launched the second deliverable from its strategic partnership with data sharing and workflow platform ipushpull. The Symphony App is the first reference data application that can be deployed into the firm’s Symphony secure team collaboration environment, and will provide licensed Symphony users with on demand access to Euromoney TRADEDATA’s reference data sets, enabling secure data transfer between internal and external counterparties, to resolve trade-processing, including incorrect or missing trade data, pre-trade risk, clearing, settlement and regulatory reporting issues.