A-Team Insight Brief
SmartStream Partners Finanz Informatik Solutions Plus to Meet Client Needs in Germany
SmartStream Technologies has partnered German IT service provider Finanz Informatik Solutions Plus to help German clients with implementation projects and application management of SmartStream’s Corona reconciliation solutions, as well as its next generation Aurora transaction lifecycle management offerings. Under the agreement, Finanz Informatik and SmartStream will help large customers in the region digitalise their back office. The partnership will support reconciliation processes for financial institutions with trade activities, fees and invoice control, and cash and intra-day liquidity management needs in the German market.
ICE Agrees to Acquire Merrill Lynch Option Volatility Estimate Indices
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has agreed to acquire fixed income volatility indices, including the Merrill Lynch Option Volatility Estimate (MOVE) family of indices, from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The MOVE Index is a well-recognised measure of US interest rate volatility and can provide a signal for changing risk sentiment in fixed income markets. ICE will also acquire variations of MOVE that track different option expiries, as well as other indices that measure volatility in the US interest rate swap market. The indices will become part of ICE Data Indices, which leverages ICE Data Services’ pricing, reference data and analytics solutions.
Charles River Expands Collaboration with MarketAxess
Charles River Development, a State Street Company, has expanded its collaboration with MarketAxess, a provider of e-trading for global fixed income. Under the expansion, Charles River clients will be offered access to MarketAxess’s Auto-X trading functionality for investment-grade credit, high-yield, emerging market debt and Eurobonds. This will allow traders and portfolio managers to source liquidity directly from the Charles River OEMS for fixed income securities in more than 25 currencies across Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia-Pacific. It will also support auto-execute orders, deliver trade allocations to dealer counterparties and receive allocation acknowledgements in an STP workflow.
CLS Adds China CITIC Bank International to Settlement Service
CLS, a market infrastructure group delivering settlement, processing and data solutions, has named China CITIC Bank International (CNCBI) as the first Chinese bank to access CLSSettlement as a third-party client. Bai Lijun, executive director, alternate CEO and treasurer, CNCBI, comments: “By becoming a participant in CLSSettlement, CNCBI aims to mitigate settlement risk, reduce operational costs related to FX trading, and create opportunities for business expansion by enabling CNCBI to do more business with a larger number of counterparties.” CLS says expanding third-party participation in CLSSettlement is part of its growth strategy in Asia Pacific.
EDI Releases Point in Time Security Reference Feed
Exchange Data International (EDI), a provider of global security corporate actions, pricing and reference data services, has released a security reference file feed called PIT (Point In Time). The feed allows clients to track, at a listing level, changes to securities coding and other key security reference data points at any point in time. The point in time’s start and end dates use public domain effective date from the event that triggered the change. This means historical reference data returned by query will represent the actual values that markets would have recorded on the specified search date.
R3 Expands Blockchain Software Engineering Team
R3, provider of Corda blockchain software and a player in capital markets, plans to double the size of its London Wall hub to accommodate its growing engineering team. The extra space will also support a hiring plan to increase the company’s global headcount from 215 to nearly 300 by the end of the year. Of this, over half of the new hires will be in the London office, with more than 40 new recruits being made in the capital. The firm’s roster of new hires will consist largely of software engineers.
NIBC Bank Migrates to Torstone Post-trade Platform
Netherlands-based NIBC Bank has completed migration to Torstone Technology’s Inferno post-trade processing platform. Inferno was selected to replace NIBC’s legacy systems as the bank rationalises its operations to drive efficiencies across the wider business. Consolidating processes on Torstone’s SaaS platform will also enable NIBC to benefit from Torstone’s service model, resulting in reduced total cost of ownership. The implementation project began in January 2019, with the bank’s equities and fixed income processes migrating to Torstone’s platform in six months.
SIX Releases Marijuana Related Data Service
SIX has introduced a service covering over 30,000 securities connected with Marijuana Related Businesses (MRBs). The service reflects the changing legal landscape around marijuana. In the US, marijuana has been legalised in some states, but is criminal at federal level. As a result, in some states MRBs can raise money via capital markets, enabling investors to access MRB linked securities. Some countries in Europe consider investing in MRBs as money laundering. MRB Securities service, built on the same model as the SIX Sanctioned Securities Monitoring Service, identifies and lists securities that are directly or indirectly issued by listed MRB entities.
ISDA Selects Bloomberg for Fallback Adjustments
The International Swaps and Derivatives Association has selected Bloomberg Index Services to calculate and publish adjustments related to fallbacks that ISDA intends to implement for certain interest rate benchmarks in its 2006 ISDA Definitions. The adjustments reflect the fact that interbank offered rates (IBORs) are available in multiple tenors, while risk-free rates (RFRs) identified as fallbacks are overnight rates. The IBORs also incorporate a bank credit risk premium, while RFRs do not. The adjustments will be published after methodologies based on industry consultation are finalised. ISDA expects the fallbacks to take effect in early 2020.
Moody’s Acquires Climate Data Specialist
Moody’s Corporation has acquired a majority stake in Berkeley, CA-based Four Twenty Seven, a provider of provider of data, intelligence, and analysis related to physical climate risks, as part of its wider strategy to develop transparent and consistent standards for evaluating ESG risk. The new acquisition will operate under its existing brand as an affiliate of Moody’s Investors Service. The deal follows Moody’s recent acquisition of Vigeo Eiris, a provider of ESG research, data, and assessments.