A-Team Insight Brief
Moody’s Completes Acquisition of Credit Data Provider Cortera
Moody’s has completed its acquisition of Cortera, a provider of North American credit data and workflow solutions. The acquisition enhances the company’s risk assessment capabilities and extends its coverage in the small and medium enterprise segment. Cortera also augments Moody’s Orbis database of private company information – acquired along with Bureau van Dijk in 2017 – and enhances its KYC, commercial lending, and supply chain solutions.
GLEIF Collaborates to Accelerate Use of LEIs in Digital Certificates
The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) has collaborated with Certification Authorities (CAs) and Trust Service Providers (TSPs) to extend use of LEIs beyond financial markets in digital certificates. A CA Stakeholder Group is supporting communication between GLEIF, CAs and TSPs as they collectively aim to coordinate and encourage a global approach to LEI usage across digital identity products. Participation has already been confirmed by China Financial Certification Authority (CFCA), DigiCert, InfoCert, Entrust Datacard, ICAI India, and SwissSign. The collaboration follows ISO’s standardisation of the process of embedding LEIs in digital certificates last year.
Refinitiv Highlights 2021 ESG Trends
Refinitiv has released its 2021 ESG Playbook: Stability and sustainability in the investment community. The annual publication explores ESG trends for the year based on conversations with 24 industry leaders. Topics featured include the development trajectory for the ESG investing industry and sustainable finance as a whole, regulatory changes, transparency in ESG reporting, quality of data, and emerging technologies.
SIX Releases Gender Equality Index
SIX has released SPI Gender Equality Index, an index measuring the number of women in top management at Swiss companies. The index is part of the company’s recently introduced ESG Indices family and uses components from the largest 100 companies of the Swiss Performance Index (SPI). To be included in the index, companies must have between 20% and 80% women on the board of directors, and between 15% and 85% on the management board. Marion Leslie, head of financial information at SIX, says: “This index offers a transparent benchmark to measure gender diversity on Swiss companies’ boards and management committees.”
Etrading Named Registration Authority for Digital Token Identifiers
Etrading Software has been named as the exclusive registration authority for the ISOs standard for digital token identifiers (DTIs). With thousands of crypto-assets in the market, there has so far been no standard way to identify one digital token from another. Identifiers conforming to the new standard, ISO 24165 DTI, will be vendor neutral, open, freely available, and global. The first DTIs registered through Etrading are expected to be available by the second half of 2021. The aim is to give buyers, sellers and regulators confidence they are talking about the same digital token.
SIX Invests in Orenda to Offer Real-time, High-frequency ESG Scores
SIX is taking a majority stake in Orenda Software Solutions, a Canadian AI platform specialising in ESG and alternative data sets, and providing real-time, high-frequency ESG scores and insights into a company’s reputation to measure the sustainability and societal impact of an investment. Marion Leslie, head of financial information at SIX, says: “With Orenda we have found the right partner with unique expertise in alternative data sets, data science and ESG. As we bring our capabilities and the expertise of our teams together, we see a lot of opportunities to build new propositions supporting the growth of impact investing.”
Moody’s Acquisition of Cortera will Expand Orbis Database
Moody’s has made a definitive agreement to acquire Cortera, a provider of North American credit data and workflow solutions. Cortera maintains a comprehensive database of credit information, featuring data and analytics on over 36 million companies. The company gathers data from thousands of sources, enhances the data using AI, and provides analytics, reports and monitoring services to help businesses make informed decisions about their counterparties. The acquisition will augment Moody’s Orbis database – acquired with Bureau van Djik – of private company information and enhance its KYC, commercial lending, and supply chain solutions.
Research Reveals Increased Use of Blockchain in Asset Management
Research by Global Palladium Fund reveals that 90% of professional investors believe that over the next five years asset managers will come under growing pressure from clients to use blockchain technology to provide greater security and transparency. Asked why blockchain will become increasingly important for asset managers, 51% of professional investors interviewed for the research said it provides more transparency around investments, 35% said it gives investors more information on investment vehicles, 12% said it would meet growing regulatory demands, and 2% said it could reduce costs.
MCA Finance Selects NeoXam to Support Growth
MCA Finance has selected NeoXam’s NxTracker3 technology to manage its front and middle office activities. The software covers all financial assets, but will be used at MCA Finance to manage specific products developed by the company, specifically structured products and OTC securities, in a customised way. NxTracker3’s native interconnectivity offers simplified exchanges with MCA Finance’s counterparts. It also meets the company’s operational and regulatory requirements, and will support growth of the business.
Natwest Markets Taps ipushpull for PPQ Price Negotiation Tool
Natwest Markets has implemented ipullpull’s PPQ (Pushpull Quotes) for price negotiation of non-standard and complex trades. PPQ is a pre-trade workflow tool that automates the negotiation process between the buy and sell side. It uses messaging networks like Symphony and standardised syntax within private bilateral chats to allow trading and sales to communicate detailed pricing and quote information. Chatbots can interpret key data within those messages, display them within a custom application and allow the user to drive the workflow from a single screen. Data mapping transforms incoming and outgoing data into the required format, creating an extensible solution to interoperate between new and existing standards. The inclusion of structured data objects within messages, containing instrument definitions, event descriptions and a wealth of other metadata, can further aid automation of pre-trade workflow.