Shield Advances Archive Modernization with Tiering and Migration Enhancements

Shield has updated its archive platform with a set of enhancements aimed at addressing a long-standing operational problem for financial institutions: how to modernise legacy communications archives without introducing migration risk, increasing storage costs or weakening compliance controls.

This latest release focuses on three areas – storage optimisation, large-scale migration and expanded governance – reflecting the practical constraints firms face as data volumes grow and regulatory expectations around record-keeping tighten.

At a technical level, the introduction of intelligent storage tiering signals a more granular approach to managing retained communications data. Frequently accessed records remain immediately searchable, while less active data is shifted to lower-cost storage tiers without losing metadata visibility or regulatory accessibility. The model is designed to reduce long-term retention costs while maintaining readiness for audit and investigation, including alignment with requirements such as SEC Rule 17a-4, CFTC, FINRA and MiFID II.

Migration remains a primary blocker to archive modernisation, particularly where firms face risks around data loss, broken lineage and evidentiary gaps. Shield positions its approach around enterprise-scale transfer with built-in validation and reconciliation to preserve completeness and auditability. The platform supports multi-petabyte migrations across legacy and modern environments, with deployments cited at over 9 petabytes and tens of billions of records migrated across multiple systems. Processing throughput is designed to operate at industrial scale, enabling firms to execute migration programmes within defined timelines rather than prolonged, multi-year transitions. Post-migration, data is maintained as a consistent and defensible record, supporting downstream compliance, audit and investigative workflows.

“Archive modernization has been constrained by migration risk, rising long-term costs, and limited control over data,” said Ofir Shabtai, CTO, Shield. “Shield Archive removes these barriers with a connected, AI-enabled data layer – combining proven large-scale migration with more efficient retention and enhanced governance controls that give compliance and legal teams greater visibility, control, and confidence in their data.”

Alongside storage and migration, the update expands governance and legal hold capabilities. This includes greater visibility into preserved data, bulk policy management and self-service controls for legal holds – features intended to reduce operational friction and improve responsiveness during investigations. AI-driven functionality is also introduced to support faster identification and assessment of relevant records.

These enhancements sit on top of a cloud-native architecture with immutable, write-once-read-many (WORM) storage, policy-driven retention and full auditability across the data lifecycle. The emphasis on single-tenant deployment and data accessibility reflects continued regulatory focus on control, traceability and evidentiary integrity.

The update builds on Shield’s positioning in digital communications governance and archiving, where archive platforms are increasingly expected to function as more than passive storage. As regulatory scrutiny intensifies and data volumes expand, the archive is becoming a foundational layer for surveillance, investigation and AI-driven analysis – rather than simply a system of record.

MAS Launches MindForge Toolkit, Expands BuildFin.ai Collaboration on AI Risk

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has operationalised its approach to artificial intelligence (AI) governance in financial services, publishing a new AI Risk Management Toolkit developed through industry collaboration under Project MindForge. The initiative brings together 24 banks, insurers and capital markets firms, reflecting a coordinated effort to translate high-level AI principles into practical implementation frameworks.

At the centre of the release is an AI Risk Management Operationalisation Handbook, designed to provide firms with actionable guidance on embedding AI risk controls across both traditional and emerging use cases, including generative and agentic AI. The toolkit focuses on how institutions can implement and evidence existing risk management expectations in production environments.

The handbook is structured around four core areas aligned with MAS’ proposed AI risk management guidelines. These include governance and oversight, where firms are expected to define clear accountability for AI systems; risk management practices, including use-case identification and materiality assessment; lifecycle controls spanning development through deployment and monitoring; and a set of organisational enablers, such as data infrastructure and internal capabilities required to sustain responsible AI adoption.

Accompanying the handbook is a set of industry case studies, offering insight into how financial institutions are approaching AI deployment in practice. These examples highlight the operational challenges associated with scaling AI safely, particularly as firms move beyond experimental use cases into business-critical applications. They also reflect the growing need to integrate AI governance into existing risk and compliance frameworks rather than treating it as a standalone discipline.

The publication comes as MAS continues to review feedback on its earlier consultation on AI risk management guidelines, suggesting that supervisory expectations in this area are still evolving. In this context, the toolkit can be seen as an intermediary step—bridging policy intent and operational execution—while allowing both regulators and firms to iterate on best practices.

MAS has indicated that the handbook will be updated over time as industry adoption matures and supervisory expectations become more defined. This iterative approach recognises the pace of change in AI technologies, particularly with the emergence of more autonomous and agent-based systems that introduce new categories of model and conduct risk.

To support ongoing development, MAS will establish an industry workgroup under its BuildFin.ai initiative, bringing together MindForge participants and additional stakeholders. The group is expected to focus on developing implementation resources, sharing practical experience, and advancing approaches to managing risks associated with newer AI paradigms.

Commenting on the initiative, Kenneth Gay, Chief FinTech Officer at MAS, said: “The development of the MindForge AI Risk Management Toolkit, including the release of the Operationalisation Handbook, marks a major step forward in our journey to ensure the responsible adoption of AI in finance. We are committed to fostering a culture of continuous engagement and strengthening of AI governance and risk management practices across the industry. The BuildFin.ai programme also serves as a foundation for our next phase of collaboration in AI risk management, to bolster the safe adoption of AI across the financial industry.”

Taken together, the toolkit and associated industry collaboration point to a shift towards more collaborative, governance-led approaches to AI. As deployment extends across front-to-back workflows, the ability to operationalise risk controls, and evidence their effectiveness to supervisors become core conditions for deploying AI safely and credibly at scale.

ThetaRay and Matrix USA Target AML’s ‘Last-Mile’ Modernisation Challenge

Financial institutions facing intensifying regulatory expectations around anti-money laundering (AML) analytics are exploring ways to introduce advanced detection capabilities without dismantling long-established compliance infrastructures. A newly announced partnership between ThetaRay and Matrix USA targets this challenge, positioning AI as an overlay rather than a wholesale replacement for existing transaction monitoring systems.

Regulatory momentum is accelerating the shift. Initiatives led by the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), alongside the European Union’s incoming Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (AMLR) and the creation of the Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA), are pushing firms toward more sophisticated analytical approaches. Supervisory expectations increasingly emphasise demonstrable effectiveness in detecting financial crime rather than simple adherence to procedural compliance frameworks.

For many banks and FinTechs, however, the practical constraint lies in the architecture of their current AML systems. Transaction monitoring environments often rely on rules engines that have evolved over decades and underpin mission-critical compliance programmes. Replacing them outright can be operationally risky and prohibitively expensive.

The partnership between ThetaRay and Matrix USA is framed around that operational reality. Matrix USA brings experience integrating AML and financial-crime technology across global banking environments, including firms operating hybrid or legacy infrastructures. ThetaRay contributes its Cognitive AI detection engine and investigation tooling, designed to operate alongside existing controls.

“Banks want to modernize, but many operate mission-critical AML programs that were built over decades,” said Lior Blik, CEO of Matrix USA. “This partnership gives them a practical path forward: enhance their current systems with AI, adopt better analytics, and meet regulatory expectations—without rebuilding their entire stack.”

The joint approach centres on deploying machine-learning-driven scoring and anomaly detection as an additional analytical layer on top of existing rules-based monitoring platforms. Rather than replacing legacy systems, the objective is to augment them with behavioural analytics and automated investigation capabilities.

“As global AML standards evolve, institutions need partners who understand both the legacy landscape and the new AI-powered future,” said Idan Keret, Chief Revenue Officer at Matrix USA. “ThetaRay’s AI combined with Matrix’s delivery expertise allows banks to strengthen detection, reduce investigation workload, and move forward with confidence without throwing away their original investments.”

Industry conversations around AML transformation frequently reflect similar operational constraints. According to ThetaRay executives, banks increasingly want faster paths to modernisation that avoid multi-year technology rebuilds.

“Every conversation we’re having with banks right now comes back to the same issue: they don’t have time for another multi-year AML transformation. What they need is speed, certainty, and proof that AI can deliver results inside the systems they already run. This partnership is built around that commercial reality,” said Jeff Otten, Chief Revenue Officer at ThetaRay.

The broader strategic question, however, is not whether artificial intelligence will play a role in financial-crime compliance, but how it is deployed in a way that remains transparent, accountable and regulator-aligned.

“AML is entering its next phase. The question is no longer whether AI belongs in financial crime compliance, but how responsibly and effectively it’s deployed at scale. Partnerships like this are what turn innovation into infrastructure,” said Brad Levy, CEO of ThetaRay.

In practical terms, the collaboration focuses on combining ThetaRay’s AI-driven detection capabilities and investigation tooling with Matrix’s implementation and integration expertise. The goal is to enable banks to introduce machine-learning analytics, automate elements of alert investigation, and reduce false positives while preserving existing compliance platforms.

In AML compliance, the “last mile” is the operational stage where alerts generated by monitoring systems must be converted into defensible investigative outcomes – encompassing alert prioritisation, investigation workflows, analyst decision support, and ultimately suspicious activity reporting. Layering new analytical capabilities onto established rules-based systems offers institutions a pragmatic way to strengthen this stage of the compliance process while preserving existing technology investments, and helping firms prepare for evolving AML supervisory expectations across the U.S. and Europe through 2026.

ACA Expands Cross-Asset Transaction Cost Analysis with FXT Acquisition

ACA Group has acquired foreign exchange analytics specialist FX Transparency (FXT), extending its capabilities in transaction cost analysis (TCA) and best-execution monitoring within the FX market.

The move follows ACA’s 2025 acquisition of Global Trading Analytics (GTA), which marked the firm’s initial expansion into TCA across equities, fixed income, derivatives and foreign exchange. With the addition of FXT, ACA deepens its coverage in FX — one of the largest and most liquid global markets, but also one where execution quality can be difficult for institutional investors to assess.

Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts, FXTT has developed a reputation for independent, data-driven analysis of FX execution. Its analytics draw on a substantial repository of institutional trading data to help asset managers, pension funds, endowments, mutual funds, insurance companies and corporations evaluate trading performance and demonstrate fiduciary oversight.

The acquisition strengthens ACA’s broader push to combine governance, risk and compliance (GRC) expertise with trading analytics. As regulatory expectations around best execution continue to tighten across multiple jurisdictions, firms are under increasing pressure to demonstrate how they source liquidity, evaluate counterparties and measure execution quality across asset classes.

In foreign exchange markets, those demands can be particularly complex. Fragmented liquidity, varied execution methodologies and the decentralized market structure mean institutional investors increasingly rely on specialised analytics to evaluate trading outcomes and benchmark counterparty performance.

“The acquisition of FX Transparency represents a deliberate next step in building a best-in-class, cross-asset TCA platform,” said Patrick Olson, CEO of ACA Group. “Following our successful acquisition of GTA, we identified FXT as a complementary platform that brings recognized FX expertise, a strong institutional client base, and differentiated analytics that enhance our ability to support clients’ transaction cost analysis and best execution needs.”

FX Transparency’s leadership sees the deal as a way to extend its analytics capabilities within a broader governance and compliance framework.

“Joining ACA enables us to continue delivering the high-quality foreign exchange analytics our clients expect, now supported by ACA’s global operating resources and broad GRC expertise. Together, we can provide a comprehensive TCA solution that addresses the evolving needs of global institutional investors,” said John Galanek, Co-Founder and CEO of FX Transparency.

As institutional investors face growing scrutiny around trading transparency and fiduciary accountability, cross-asset analytics platforms that combine market data, execution analysis and compliance oversight are becoming core components in the GRC toolkit.

FinScan and Nexus AML Partner to Scale Data-First AML Operations

Financial institutions have long invested heavily in transaction monitoring, sanctions screening, and KYC controls, yet many compliance teams continue to confront a more fundamental obstacle: the quality of the data that feeds those systems. Poorly structured or incomplete customer and transaction data can generate large volumes of alerts and manual investigation work, stretching already pressured financial crime teams.

Against this backdrop, Innovative Systems’ FinScan has entered into a strategic partnership with Nexus AML aimed at addressing the operational bottleneck at the front end of AML programmes: data readiness. The collaboration brings together FinScan’s data cleansing and sanctions-screening technology with Nexus AML’s outsourced financial crime operations, reflecting a growing industry emphasis on “data-first” compliance architectures.

Operational pressure linked to data quality is widely recognised across the sector. In a FinScan poll of 550 compliance professionals, 59% reported that data quality consumes most of their time – highlighting the extent to which AML teams are still managing downstream consequences of upstream data issues.

The partnership is designed to address that imbalance by combining automated data preparation with operational expertise in clearing and managing alerts. Institutions working with Nexus AML will be able to integrate FinScan’s real-time data cleansing and screening technology, which targets sanctions, watchlists and payment flows, with the aim of reducing unnecessary alerts and improving the accuracy of screening results. In parallel, organisations using FinScan’s technology will be able to access Nexus AML’s operational support services to help manage investigation workloads and maintain compliance processes during periods of heightened activity.

Deborah Overdeput, Chief Operating Officer at Innovative Systems, framed the collaboration around the operational foundations of AML programmes. “FinScan and Nexus AML share the belief that financial crime compliance must be both operationally scalable and strategically grounded in high-quality, compliance-ready data,” she said. “Our partnership brings together two complementary strengths: operational excellence in clearing and investigating alerts, and a data-first screening approach that reduces those alerts in the first place. Together, we’re helping institutions build AML programs that are more efficient, defensible, and sustainable.”

Teciem Welcomes Didier Bouillard as Chairman of Board of Directors

Teciem has appointed Didier Bouillard as independent chairman of its board, adding a senior capital-markets technology executive whose career spans some of the industry’s most significant trading, risk and regulatory infrastructure platforms. The move signals the firm’s focus on strengthening governance as it continues to scale its treasury and capital-markets software platform under private-equity ownership.

Bouillard brings more than three decades of experience building and leading enterprise financial-technology businesses. Based in London, he will work with Teciem’s board, management team and shareholder representatives to support strategic direction and governance oversight as the company pursues its next phase of growth.

His career includes senior roles at Ubitrade and SunGard, where he helped develop and expand trading, risk and post-trade platforms used widely across the industry. He later served as chief executive of Ullink, leading the firm’s global expansion before becoming CEO of Calypso Technology in 2018. In 2021 he took on leadership of Adenza following the merger of Calypso Technology and AxiomSL, overseeing the integration of trading, treasury, risk and regulatory-compliance capabilities before the company was acquired by Nasdaq.

Throughout these roles, Bouillard has worked at the intersection of market infrastructure, enterprise software and private-equity ownership models—experience that Teciem’s leadership believes will be relevant as the firm continues to expand its front-to-back treasury and capital-markets offering.

Commenting on the appointment, Wissam Khoury, Chief Executive Officer and Board Director at Teciem, said: “Welcoming an independent chairman of Didier’s caliber and experience to our Board of Directors marks an important milestone in Teciem’s evolution as a standalone, private-equity backed provider of treasury and capital markets technology. The appointment reflects our commitment to balanced oversight and governance standards consistent with leading institutional fintech platforms. Didier’s expertise in scaling fintech businesses in partnership with private equity, combined with his independent perspective, will be instrumental as we grow the business and execute our strategic roadmap.”

FIS Acquires Droit: Computational Law Moves Into the Core of Capital Markets Infrastructure

Financial technology provider Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) has acquired RegTech firm Droit, a specialist in computational law and automated regulatory decisioning used across global capital markets.

The deal brings Droit’s rule-based compliance platform into the FIS capital-markets technology stack, positioning the combined offering to deliver embedded regulatory controls across trading, post-trade processing and reporting workflows.

Andres Choussy, President & COO, FIS said  “Our clients spend enormous time and money managing regulatory complexity and most of that work is still manual.  This is a challenge we’ve aimed to address for a significant time, and with our recent acquisition of Droit, we are now positioned to achieve it.”

Droit is known for its Adept platform, which encodes regulatory obligations as machine-executable logic that can determine whether a trade, product or activity complies with jurisdiction-specific market rules in real time. The technology is used by banks, trading venues and market infrastructure providers to automate complex regulatory determinations across regimes such as derivatives reporting, product eligibility and cross-border market access.

For Droit, the combination represents an opportunity to scale its regulatory decisioning technology within a larger financial-technology platform serving thousands of financial institutions worldwide. FIS provides banking, payments and capital-markets technology to more than 20,000 clients globally.

Brock Arnason, Chief Executive Officer of Droit, said the integration with FIS would extend the reach of Droit’s approach to computational regulation.

“Our mission has always been to translate complex regulation into precise, executable logic,” Arnason said. “Joining FIS allows us to bring that capability to a broader set of market participants and embed regulatory intelligence directly within core financial workflows.”

Grant Thornton UK Modernises Client Onboarding with Fenergo CLM

Grant Thornton UK is moving to modernise its client onboarding and due diligence processes through the deployment of Fenergo’s client lifecycle management (CLM) platform. The initiative reflects a broader shift among professional services firms toward centralised onboarding architectures that bring know-your-customer (KYC), due diligence and engagement acceptance into a unified workflow.

The new platform is intended to streamline how Grant Thornton performs client checks and manages regulatory obligations at the outset of an engagement. By consolidating previously fragmented processes into a single system, the firm expects to reduce manual effort associated with onboarding while improving the consistency of risk and compliance assessments.

In practical terms, the change replaces labour-intensive onboarding steps with a structured digital workflow that integrates KYC, client due diligence and engagement approval. The goal is to reduce the operational overhead associated with onboarding new clients while enabling teams to focus more on advisory and client-facing work.

“Efficiency, quality and compliance are fundamental to delivering exceptional service to our clients. Fenergo’s unified platform will help us optimise the onboarding experience, reducing time and supporting regulatory readiness across our business; all underpinned by the company’s proven track record and deep expertise in this space,” said Fiona Baldwin, Chief Operating Officer, Grant Thornton UK.

Grant Thornton’s adoption also reflects a wider trend in which large professional services and financial institutions are investing in technology platforms to standardise onboarding and compliance processes. In this context, client lifecycle management systems increasingly act as operational control points – linking regulatory checks, documentation and approval workflows into a single operational layer.

“We are proud to partner with Grant Thornton UK as they reimagine their operating model for client onboarding, due diligence and engagement acceptance. Our mission is to empower users to focus on their most critical business priorities, gaining a competitive advantage through efficiency and personalised client experience. By leveraging AI, we aim to streamline workflows, remove waste and drive impactful outcomes. Grant Thornton’s adoption underscores our strategic growth in the professional services sector and the strength of our AI-powered CLM platform,” said Ruth Ormsby, Managing Director, EMEA, Fenergo.

The deployment highlights how onboarding technology—once primarily associated with banking KYC – has become increasingly relevant to professional services firms facing similar regulatory scrutiny around client due diligence, risk assessment and engagement governance.

TransferMate Completes Global Rollout of Vivox AI’s Next Generation KYB Automation

TransferMate has completed the global rollout of Vivox AI’s automation platform for Know Your Business (KYB), embedding explainable AI agents into its onboarding and due diligence workflows.

The move follows a period of expansion across Asia Pacific and other regions, where rising onboarding volumes placed pressure on compliance operations. For a payments infrastructure provider operating across multiple jurisdictions, scaling customer due diligence without weakening control standards is a structural challenge rather than a temporary one.

TransferMate states it operates 100 licences and serves customers across APAC, the Americas and Europe. As it enters new markets, the firm sought to standardise KYB processes, accelerate review cycles and maintain alignment with evolving regulatory expectations across jurisdictions.

Vivox AI’s platform is designed to analyse up to 100 complex corporate documents and registries per case, identify ultimate beneficial owners, shareholders and directors, perform sanctions, politically exposed person (PEP) and adverse media screening, and produce complete customer due diligence (CDD) or enhanced due diligence (EDD) reports. It supports onboarding across more than 100 countries and can process multiple document formats, including large files and lower-quality images.

Under the hood, the system orchestrates workflow using an ensemble of specialised models, more than 24 integrated verification and screening APIs, and over 35 AI models. The architecture is positioned as delivering consistency and auditability across the KYB lifecycle – attributes that have become central to supervisory scrutiny of AI use in regulated environments.

A notable element of the deployment is a self-learning AI agent operating within Vivox AI’s governance framework. During the first two weeks of live production, the system incorporated structured feedback from TransferMate’s senior analysts. According to the firms, the quality approval rate of AI-generated outcomes increased from approximately 60% to around 80% over that period, indicating measurable improvement through human-in-the-loop calibration rather than autonomous optimisation.

Governance configuration formed part of the implementation. Vivox AI aligned its control modules with TransferMate’s internal policies and procedures, embedding evaluation against defined risk, quality, explainability and oversight criteria. This reflects a broader industry shift, where institutions are expected not only to deploy AI, but to demonstrate how models are monitored, constrained and reviewed.

“We operate in a fast-moving regulatory landscape, and maintaining compliance excellence is fundamental to how we scale,” said Alex Clements, Global Head of AML at TransferMate. “As we expand into new regions, we must increase onboarding capacity without compromising the rigour of our due diligence processes. Vivox AI has enabled us to compress timelines significantly while enhancing the depth, consistency and auditability of every review. Crucially, it augments our compliance team while keeping humans firmly in the loop.”

Vivox AI framed the project as evidence that structured AI deployment can align with supervisory expectations. “TransferMate’s implementation demonstrates how responsible, transparent AI can deliver measurable impact at scale,” said Tim Khamzin, Founder and CEO of Vivox AI. “The deployment aligns with evolving regulatory expectations, from the EU AI Act to recent FCA and Singaporean frameworks, while maintaining strong governance and auditability across jurisdictions. Their ability to move rapidly from planning to full operational use reflects a strong adoption culture and a clear vision for how AI agents can empower compliance teams.”

For TransferMate, audit defensibility remains a key consideration. “The level of detail in Vivox’s AI governance framework gives me confidence that we can demonstrate robust controls during audits and regulatory inspections relating to AI use,” added Clements.

The rollout signals a wider recalibration in regulated financial services: AI is increasingly being deployed not simply to reduce manual workload, but to reshape how compliance operating models absorb growth. Independent AI assurance is expected to complement the deployment, providing external validation of safety, governance and regulatory alignment as supervisory focus on AI intensifies.

CUBE Acquires Silicon Valley RegTech, 4CRisk, Delivering Next Generation Compliance and Risk Mapping Automation

CUBE has expanded its regulatory technology footprint with the acquisition of 4CRisk.ai, a Silicon Valley-based RegTech focused on AI-driven policy and control mapping. The move brings together CUBE’s Automated Regulatory Intelligence (ARI) and Regulatory Change Management (RCM) capabilities with 4CRisk’s agentic AI platform, which maps corporate policies and procedures directly to regulatory obligations, controls and risk frameworks.

Founded in 2019, 4CRisk built a platform designed to analyse internal documentation at a granular level and align it to external regulatory requirements. Its architecture is underpinned by proprietary Specialised Language Models (SLMs) trained on regulatory compliance and risk source material. Combined with its AI compliance CoPilot, Ask ARIA, the platform automates the translation of regulatory text into structured obligations and mapped controls. The company has positioned this approach as delivering results “up to fifty times faster than equivalent manual processes”, reflecting the persistent industry challenge of resource-intensive policy reviews and control attestations.

For CUBE, the acquisition extends its offering beyond regulatory change identification into automated impact assessment across enterprise governance frameworks. The combined proposition links regulatory horizon scanning with structured mapping to policies, procedures and controls, reducing the manual interpretation that typically sits between compliance monitoring and operational execution. The 4CRisk team, located across the US, India and the UK, will join CUBE’s global workforce of AI engineers and regulatory specialists.

Ben Richmond, Founder & CEO of CUBE, framed the transaction as an extension of the firm’s existing strategy: “CUBE is the strategic partner of choice for the world’s leading financially regulated organisations for both their financial and non-financial compliance and risk requirements. 4CRisk extends our reach in adjacent corporate regulatory domains and enables our RegPlatform customers to move from understanding regulatory changes to fully automating the mapping to internal governance frameworks. This is a natural extension of our capabilities and a meaningful step forward in helping our customers manage their compliance and risk more effectively across the enterprise.”

He added that the acquisition reflects the pace of AI development emerging from the US technology sector: “The pace of AI innovation coming out of Silicon Valley is remarkable, and 4CRisk is a great example of that. They’ve built an incredible platform and the team behind it will be instrumental in helping us further accelerate innovation for our customers.”