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.

ION Continues Acquisition Spree with Purchase of Dash Financial

ION Investment Group – owner of such esteemed trading technology brands as Fidessa, Dealogic, Caplin, FfastFill, Iris Financial, OpenLink, FSS and others – has added another property to its portfolio, in the form of New York-based options trading tech specialist Dash Financial Technologies. ION has agreed to acquire Dash from private equity firm Flexpoint Ford. Jefferies LLC served as financial advisor to DASH and Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal counsel to Flexpoint Ford and Dash.

Anglo-Gulf Trade Bank Chooses Fenergo for CLM Solution

The world’s first digital trade finance bank, Anglo-Gulf Trade Bank (AGTB), based in the UAE, has chosen Fenergo to deploy its CLM platform.

Fenergo will enable AGTB to meet its strategic objective to disrupt the trade finance market with a cloud-based, digital-first and client-centric model leveraging emerging technologies such as data analytics and API connectivity.

AGTB aims to address the gap in the trade finance market by becoming the first digital bank servicing the sector. Fenergo’s API-first CLM solutions will provide AGTB with a single client view across all departments, jurisdictions and products, while expediating Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti Money Laundering (AML) processes and time to revenue. 

InvestCloud Recapitalisation Creates Global SaaS Wealth Solutions Platform

InvestCloud has completed a recapitalisation that values the business at $1 billion. New financial investors are led by Motive Partners with Clearlake Capital Group and include InvestCloud client shareholders. Under the terms of the agreement, Motive will contribute two portfolio businesses, Finantix and Tegra118, to InvestCloud, creating a global Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) wealth solutions platform. The combined company will offer a wealth advisor platform, private banking platform, financial supermarket, and custom financial platform. InvestCloud CEO John Wise says the recapitalisation will help meet InvestCloud’s ultimate objective of building the world’s largest financial supermarket.

Broadridge Partners Third Economy to Offer ESG Advisory Services

Broadridge Financial Solutions has weighed into the ESG investment market with advisory services offered in partnership with Third Economy, a provider of sustainable investment research. The ESG advisory services combine Broadridge’s data, technology and communications expertise and Third Economy’s proprietary methodology for systematically evaluating sustainable investment efforts of companies and enabling clients to move from ESG strategy through to execution.

FCA & FRC Remind Firms Of Extended Financial Information Timelines

The FCA and FRC have issued a statement reminding companies of the measures issued in 2020 that provide more time for the work necessary to ensure that published financial information continues to be of the quality that preparers and users of financial information expect. These include allowing listed companies an additional two months to publish their audited annual financial reports.

“This is because we recognise that we are now in the busiest period of the year for preparing, auditing and publishing financial information. This has coincided with further restrictions imposed through the recent national lockdowns in the UK,” says the statement. “The FCA and FRC would like to encourage all stakeholders including in particular boards of listed companies to (1) re-familiarise themselves with the measures and (2) use them in light of any resourcing constraints in finance and/or audit teams to ensure the quality of reporting is not compromised during this period.”

EBA Announces Timing for 2021 EU-wide Stress Test Exercise

The European Banking Authority (EBA) will launch its 2021 EU-wide stress test exercise with the publication of the macroeconomic scenarios on 29 January at 18:00 CET. The EBA expects to publish the results of the exercise by July  31, 2021.

TA Associates Sells ITRS Stake to Montagu Private Equity

Montagu Private Equity has agreed to acquire a majority position in ITRS Group, a global provider of real-time monitoring and analytics software, from TA Associates, which will remain a minority holder alongside Montagu and Management. Financial terms were not disclosed but completion is expected next month, subject to regulatory approvals.London-headquartered ITRS Group has over 3,000 clients worldwide, including nine out of the ten Tier 1 investment banks. In September 2020 it acquired Uptrends, a Netherlands-based web performance monitoring solution, to strengthen its product suite.