Adroit Integrates Cross-Asset EMS with BlackRock Aladdin

Adroit Trading Technologies has integrated its multi-asset execution management capabilities with BlackRock’s Aladdin platform, enabling mutual clients to access Adroit’s trading functionality directly through Aladdin.

The multi-year partnership is designed to streamline institutional trading workflows and improve operational efficiency across fixed income, currencies and OTC derivatives.

Adroit said the integration comes as OTC markets undergo continued electronification, accompanied by growth in the number of electronic liquidity providers, trading protocols and risk-transfer mechanisms such as portfolio trading. The company’s EMS is designed to help institutional buy-side firms manage these increasingly complex execution workflows within a single platform.

Adroit CEO Anil Jaglan described the partnership as an opportunity to provide mutual clients with a more integrated trading experience. The New York-based technology provider specialises in execution management for institutional investors, covering both trading and related workflows across multiple asset classes.

OSTTRA and Acuiti: Post-Trade Emerging as Competitive Differentiator

Derivatives firms are increasingly treating post-trade operations as a source of competitive advantage and capital efficiency rather than simply a back-office cost, according to research from OSTTRA and Acuiti.

The study of 45 sell-side firms found that 96% of respondents active in OTC derivatives and 89% in listed derivatives see improved netting and optimisation as a significant route to balance-sheet and capital efficiency. Meanwhile, 86% regard superior post-trade transparency, speed and automation as a competitive differentiator for institutional clients.

Significant inefficiencies remain. Two-thirds of respondents said listed derivatives operations teams spend more than 10% of their time resolving exceptions, fails and settlement breaks, while 82% reported that more than 10% of bilateral OTC trades are still confirmed manually.

AI adoption is also gathering pace, with almost a third of firms already deploying the technology in production and a similar proportion running active pilots.

TP ICAP’s Parameta Widens Data Arrangement with ICE

Parameta Solutions, the data and analytics division of TP ICAP Group, has expanded its data distribution agreement with Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).
The expansion allows ICE to distribute Parameta Solutions’ over-the-counter market data across rates, fixed income, foreign exchange, money markets and energy via its consolidated feed.
The data is sourced from brokerage brands ICAP, Tullett Prebon and PVM.
“By combining the depth of liquidity and market expertise within TP ICAP Group with ICE’s global distribution capabilities, we are making hard-to-source OTC market data more accessible, usable and actionable,” said Lisa Ward Head of channel distribution at Parameta Solutions.
The consolidated feed aggregates content from more than 600 data streams and was already distributing exchange-traded data for ICE.

Remi Secures Stellar Funding for Privacy-Oriented Payments

Remi, an Egyptian-founded FinTech based in the UAE, has secured a grant of approximately USD 135,000 from the Stellar Community Fund. Founded in the cross-border payments infrastructure startup connects financial institutions to local payout rails. The newly acquired funding will be dedicated to developing a confidential settlement layer on the Stellar blockchain specifically designed for banks, exchange houses, and payment service providers.

The primary objective of this project is to address a critical hurdle in institutional blockchain adoption: balancing public ledger efficiency with transaction privacy and regulatory compliance. Public blockchains inherently expose sensitive transaction data, creating a fundamental barrier for regulated financial entities. Remi aims to bridge this gap by establishing an infrastructure that protects sensitive data while ensuring authorised parties can maintain compliance visibility
when required.

To secure this privacy, Remi’s settlement layer will encrypt transaction amounts and account balances directly on-chain, using zero-knowledge proofs to validate transfers without exposing the numbers. For regulatory compliance, the protocol will feature a function where new accounts escrow a viewing key. This allows authorised auditors to unlock specific transfers in an investigation without compromising the account’s entire transaction history. Furthermore, Remi will sponsor network fees in the background so participating institutions do not need to hold or manage cryptocurrency.

Bank Group Plans USD Stablecoin Launch in 1H27

Reuters reports that a yet-to-named coalition of 21 major financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citi, and Deutsche Bank, has announced plans to form a new company dedicated to launching a US dollar-pegged cryptocurrency in the first half of 2027. This stablecoin aims to integrate DLT technology into the mainstream financial system, with the group expanding significantly from its initial involvement of 10 banks in October 2025.

Following the initial USD launch, the venture plans to develop additional stablecoins pegged to other G7 currencies, prioritising a euro-pegged token. Through this digital asset infrastructure, the participating banks intend to establish a regulated framework for global money movement and trade settlement within the cryptocurrency landscape.

KOR Launches Australian Trade Repository for ASIC Derivatives Reporting

KOR has begun accepting submissions through its Australian derivative trade repository (ADTR), giving reporting entities a second licensed repository option for complying with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s (ASIC’s) Derivative Transaction Rules.

The repository supports all reportable asset classes and client segments. Its launch follows ASIC’s decision to grant KOR an ADTR licence, making Australia the latest market in which KOR operates licensed trade repository infrastructure.

The opening comes as ASIC increases its scrutiny of derivatives reporting following the revised rules introduced in October 2024. KOR said regulatory fines and data-quality assessment reports have placed greater pressure on firms to improve the completeness and accuracy of their submissions.

KOR’s repository provides sub-second message processing, aggregated explanations for rejected messages and real-time grouping of rejections. The company said these functions can help reporting teams identify systemic submission problems and understand how rejected reports should be corrected. Clients can also access reporting histories on demand and test their submissions in an environment designed to operate at production-level performance.

“A reporting team should be able to have a well explained reason for why a message was rejected and how to correct it, have a TR that is always open to receive data, and a support staff who are experts in the regulations,” said Jonathan Thursby, Chief Executive Officer of KOR. “That is not an ambitious standard for a trade repository. It is the baseline.”

Firms moving open trades or positions to KOR must send a port-out message to their incumbent repository and a corresponding port-in message to KOR. The same unique transaction identifier (UTI) is retained, avoiding the need to re-key trades or reconstruct their reporting history. Closed trades and positions remain at the previous repository. KOR said it will manage the porting process for users of its reporting services.

The Australian operation extends KOR’s licensed trade repository coverage beyond the United States, where it operates repositories regulated by the CFTC and SEC, and Canada. Its wider reporting platform also supports obligations in the EU, UK and Singapore.

LCH SwapClear Clears First POLSTR OIS as Poland Moves Away from WIBOR

LCH SwapClear has cleared its first overnight index swaps (OIS) referencing POLSTR, the new risk-free rate for Polish zloty-denominated swaps, with Erste Group, ING Slaski and Societe Generale among the first participants.

The launch supports Poland’s transition from WIBOR to POLSTR and the National Working Group’s efforts to encourage adoption of the new benchmark in OTC derivatives markets. GPW Benchmark began publishing POLSTR in June 2025, while restrictions on the use of WIBOR in swaps are due to take effect from early 2027.

LCH said the addition extends SwapClear’s support for global interest rate benchmark reform. Polish zloty is currently SwapClear’s tenth-largest currency by registered swaps notional, with the equivalent of US$7 trillion cleared during the first half of 2026. SwapClear now provides clearing across 28 currencies.

FIX and Investment Association Set Roadmap for Electronic Equity Issuance

The FIX Trading Community and Investment Association have published an industry framework aimed at moving equity capital raising towards fully electronic workflows.

Developed by FIX’s Equity Issuance Working Group, the recommended practices set out how the FIX protocol can support digital bookbuilding and deal allocation, initially focusing on Accelerated Bookbuild Offerings (ABOs). The framework covers both direct orders and those placed through vendors or intermediaries.

Equity issuance remains heavily dependent on orders communicated by email, telephone and chat, creating operational risk and limiting automation. The vendor- and system-agnostic framework establishes a standardised approach for communication between investment managers, syndicate banks and technology platforms.

The working group expects future development to extend the standards across IPOs and secondary placements, with the longer-term goal of enabling buy-side traders to place primary-market orders through FIX in much the same way as they currently trade in secondary markets.

AI Needs Specific Regulations in Financial Services, University Report Urges

Bespoke rules covering artificial intelligence use are needed to limit risks to consumers and strengthen oversight across the financial sector, according to Durham University Business School, which studied the technology’s use in financial services.

Regulatory approaches are inconsistent across jurisdictions, with the European Union and China implementing specific legislation while the UK and US rely on principles-based approaches, the report stated.

“Financial services should not be governed by generic AI rules and instead need a model built around the sector’s particular risks,” Professor Habib Ahmed of the university’s Department of Finance wrote.

Identified risk areas include data mishandling, biased automated decision-making, reliance on external technology suppliers, and exposure to cyber threats.

It proposed a framework that sorts AI use into four tiers, ranging from banned applications to minimal-risk uses that fall outside the rules, building upon previous legislative models.

Dun & Bradstreet Makes AI Agents Available on Snowflake Marketplace

Commercial data and analytics specialist Dun & Bradstreet has made its conversational artificial intelligence agents available to clients on Snowflake Marketplace.

The integration combines AI with the D&B Commercial Graph, enabling users to interact with company intelligence through natural language directly in Snowflake.
The deployment provides a sample of business-to-business company and contact data to let users explore intelligence and automate lead scoring.

Rodrigo Rocha, vice president of global ISV and enterprise technology partnerships at Snowflake, said that combining entity resolution with Snowflake Cortex AI creates immediate value for enterprise customers.