Centralis Group Selects Fenergo Client Lifecycle Management

Fenergo, a provider of digital Client Lifecycle Management (CLM), Know your Customer (KYC) and transaction monitoring solutions for financial institutions, has been selected by Centralis Group, which will use Fenergo CLM to streamline client and investor onboarding processes and strengthen its foundation for sustainable international growth.

Luxembourg-based Centralis is an alternative asset and corporate services provider. Fenergo’s technology will enable the firm to increase operational efficiency, optimise the onboarding journey for both clients and investors, and reduce the potential for duplication of effort. By streamlining and accelerating onboarding, Centralis expects to foster stronger client relationships from the beginning while remaining compliant with diverse regulations across its global network.

Mosaic Smart Data Research Reveals Front Office Data Challenges

Mosaic Smart Data, a provider of real-time capital markets data analytics, has revealed the challenges front offices in investment banks face when attempting to get their data in a fit state to deploy AI-powered analytics for improved efficiency, productivity and profitability.

Mosaic research found data quality and integrity is a critical challenge with 66% of banks struggling with data quality and gaps in important data points; 83% with no real-time access to transaction data and/or data analytics; and 66% saying the data that is most useful for analytics is challenging to access. Reference data is unfit for purpose, with 50% of banks having reference data with no unified counterparty identifier, especially for client static data, and sometimes the data is missing altogether.

Matthew Hodgson, CEO and founder of Mosaic, comments: “No powerful analytics or AI can fully function if data is not normalised, maintained in an orderly fashion and gaps in the data enriched. Now is a crucial time to invest in data and analytics for the front office – but ROI must be guaranteed in the current economic climate, and this begins with better data health.”

The research covered six million Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC) transactions from global and regional investment banks in South America, US, Canada, UK, EU, South Africa, Japan and Australia, and surveyed front office staff including traders, salespeople and quants.

Cognizant Collaborates with Microsoft on genAI Powered Innovation Assistant

Cognizant, a provider of IT, consulting and business process services, has collaborated with Microsoft to launch Innovation Assistant, a generative AI-powered tool built on Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and designed to augment Cognizant’s internal innovation programme. The Innovation Assistant assimilates enterprise knowledge and enables greater creativity and innovation among teams of Cognizant employees working to solve client challenges.

UK ESG Ratings Code of Conduct to be Explained in London

LSEG, the owner of the London Stock Exchange, will host an event to discuss how the UK’s code of conduct covering ESG ratings and data companies will work in practice.

Companies are being invited to sign up to the code of conduct after it was launched in December following its proposal in the summer. The January 31 event in London is aimed at explaining to signatories and other stakeholders how they will be affected by the measure.

The code envisages a six-principles approach to bringing order to ESG ratings whose providers face criticism over inconsistencies in their scores and conflicts of interest.

It was commissioned by the UK regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which created the ESG Data and Ratings Code of Conduct Working Group (DRWG) to draw up the proposals. The working group was supported by the International Regulatory Strategy Group (IRSG) and the International Capital Market Association (ICMA).

Quantexa Partners Anti-Human Trafficking Intelligence Initiative

Quantexa, a provider of decision intelligence solutions, has announced corporate sponsorship and advisory council membership of the Anti-Human Trafficking Intelligence Initiative (ATII). The ATII is a US-based non-profit organisation with a mission to fight human trafficking and child exploitation by providing data to advance the prevention, detection, investigation, and reporting mechanisms required to identify potential traffickers and criminal organisations.

Quantexa will provide decision intelligence technology and AI-driven financial crime prevention and detection through training and joint industry engagement, making global human trafficking risk data available to more organisations. Quantexa’s decision intelligence platform enables organisations to automate data ingestion and matching at scale and apply graph analytics to visually identify often hard-to-detect activity related to financial crime. Providing access to a wider set of data points specific to human trafficking will enable investigators to take a more robust approach to anti-human trafficking measures.

S&P DJI Launches Impact-Focused SDG-Alignment Benchmarks

Two new sustainability indices have been launched by S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI) enabling investors to benchmark against companies aligned with the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The S&P 500 SDG Index and the S&P Global LargeMidCap SDG Index are built on data that reflect the constituent companies’ impact on the environment and society. They don’t take into account the financial materiality of ESG factors.

“With this approach, S&P DJI is offering broad-based sustainability performance measurement tools, one that is based on the S&P 500, which is the best single gauge of large-cap US equities, and the other based on the S&P Global Large MidCap Index, which represents the top 85% market capitalisation of each developed and emerging country,” said Jas Duhra, Global Head of Sustainability Indices at S&P DJI.

The indices’ data is sourced from London-based impact data provider Impact Cubed.

Qlik and Mozaic Plan SaaS-Based Data Product Catalogue

Qlik, a supplier of data integration and analytics, has acquired Mozaic Data, a provider of AI-driven data management technology. The acquisition is expected to simplify data handling for businesses by focusing on a data product-oriented approach for better data quality and governance.

Mozaic’s Data Product Experience approach follows the principles of decentralised architecture and enables organisations to build, secure, govern, deploy, and manage domain-centric data products in the cloud. Working with Qlik, the partners plan to develop a data product catalog solution to allow customers to extract more value from their data quickly and effectively.

Drew Clarke, general manager of the data business unit at Qlik, says: “Customers recognise the importance of treating data as a product, a strategy that aligns with the need for a SaaS-based data product catalog offering a more efficient and user-friendly experience in data lifecycle management.”

Arkéa Investment Services Renews Partnership with NeoXam, Extends Managed Services

Arkéa Investment Services, which brings together the asset management and private banking organisations within Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, is renewing its partnership with NeoXam and the use of its Tracker front-to-middle portfolio management solution for the asset management activities of Federal Finance Gestion and Schelcher Prince Gestion.

The partnership aims to strengthen the use of NeoXam Tracker, particularly in order routing functionalities, monitoring investment constraints, and providing support for investment decisions. It also relies on a more direct collaboration based on the provision of managed services by NeoXam.

Florent Fabre, CEO of NeoXam, comments: “Crédit Mutuel Arkéa is a strategic client for NeoXam, using two major solutions from our offering.”

Solidatus Adds Artefact to Partner Portfolio

Solidatus has added Artefact, a data analytics and AI services consultancy specialising in helping organisations deliver measurable value from data, to its partner portfolio. The partnership is expected to simplify data lineage and data management processes for customers in the financial services sector and extend Solidatus’ reach to new financial services customers needing to build faster, automated data infrastructure.

Akhilesh Kale, senior director and financial services and insurance lead at Artefact US, says: “As we join forces, we are looking forward to accelerating value creation through data discovery for our clients’ front office, risk and regulatory use cases.”

Mike Pierce, vice president of global alliances at Solidatus, comments: “We look forward to jointly delivering Solidatus’ unique approach to building data transparency and establishing trust across complex environments, empowering clients to meet governance and regulatory requirements.”

ICE and Blockstream Add Cryptocurrency Options Data to Crypto Data Feed

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), a provider of data, technology and market infrastructure, and Blockstream, a provider of blockchain technologies and financial cryptography, have added cryptocurrency options data to the Cryptocurrency Data Feed launched by the partners in 2018 and offered via the ICE Consolidated Feed.

The Cryptocurrency Data Feed is designed to enable ICE Data Services’ customers to receive global market data in a streaming feed with comprehensive cryptocurrency information. It includes data on over 100 cryptocurrencies from more than 30 globally sourced venues and exchanges. As part of ICE’s exclusive agreement with Blockstream, ICE offers extensive coverage of prices and order book data for cryptocurrencies by exchange.