A-Team Insight Brief
Calastone Shifts to Blockchain
London-based fintech firm Calastone, which provides back and middle-office services to over 1,700 clients including JP Morgan Asset Management and Schroders, has shifted its entire trading system to blockchain – including more than 9 million monthly e-communications. “The more you can automate, the more you de-risk, you more you streamline, the more you speed up,” said Andrew Tomlinson, chief marketing officer at Calastone.
Positive Progress, Says Powell
Progress has been made around the world on financial regulation, according to US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. In a recent speech he noted that regulation has become stricter and more transparent, but warned that further adjustments could be on the horizon. “In the financial stability realm, the case for enhanced transparency is not just about being accountable; it is also about providing credible information,” he said. “[Stress tests] have placed special demands on transparency and accountability… The framework is still evolving, and we will need to be open to making changes.”
big xyt adds MiFID II Liquidity Dashboards to Liquidity Cockpit
big xyt has added dashboards to its Liquidity Cockpit that are designed to support discovery of high-quality liquidity within the MiFID II landscape. Users can view and compare reported systematic internaliser (SI) volumes, which can then be filtered by adjusted conditions or analysed by time, region or symbol. This facilitates comparisons with other market activity such as Large-in-Scale (LIS) trades and the impact of Double Volume Caps (DVCs) on liquidity dispersion over time.
Moscow Exchange Partners Integral
Moscow Exchange (MOEX) and FX specialist Integral have partnered to provide exchange customers with access to better liquidity, higher performance and lower latency. The improvements are based on the use of Integral’s Open Currency Exchange (OCX) and also include better pricing, lower risk and faster acknowledgement. On its part, MOEX will provide liquidity to the Integral network.
Altair Acquires Datawatch
Simulation technologies provider Altair has acquired data intelligence specialist Datawatch – along with its Panopticon visualization platform – for $176 million in cash. The move is aimed at bolstering Altair’s offerings in the generic data science and analytics segment, where Datawatch has strong offerings in data prep, data prediction, and real-time high-volume data visualisation. For capital markets users, Datawatch is probably best known for its Panopticon suite of visualisation tools. Datawatch acquired Panopticon Software in August 2013, and recently made Panopticon Streams widely available to Datawatch clients.
RavenPack and CloudQuant Team Up
Machine-readable news platform provider RavenPack has granted access to its historical data to crowd researchers seeking alpha signals on CloudQuant’s online Python and JupyterLab-based tools. The initiative aims to support data scientists designing tools to improve financial modelling.
Abacus Group Acquires Hedgepoint Solutions
Abacus Group, a provider of hosting services for the hedge fund marketplace, has acquired Hedgepoint Solutions, a New York-based IT consulting firm that targets hedge funds, venture capital and private equity firms. As a result, Hedgepoint clients will benefit from the wide variety of features included in the Abacus Cloud platform, such as off-site data centres and a flexible, secure cloud.
PwC Acquires KYC-Pro
PwC has acquired client onboarding specialist KYC-Pro from compliance consultancy FSCom for an undisclosed amount. The move comes as part of PwC’s plans to expand its regulatory compliance offering. KYC-Pro enables customers access to over 127 million companies worldwide, conduct individual AML checks across more than 20 countries and cross reference potential customers against international PEPs and Sanctions lists. PwC partner Ian McConnell says: “AI and automation can deliver significant benefits for organisations and people and, by incorporating KYC-Pro to our existing regulatory compliance offering, it complements the significant presence we already have in the financial crime operations space.” Research shows that by 2020, European banks will spend more than €1bn annually on their KYC management.
MünchenerHyp Selects Finastra for Regulatory Reporting
Münchener Hypothekenbank (MünchenerHyp), the property financing partner of German cooperative banks Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken, has selected Finastra’s regulatory reporting solution to meet its post-trade transaction and transparency reporting requirements under MiFID II and MiFIR. MünchenerHyp worked closely with Finastra and local implementation partner Finbridge to successfully deliver the project ahead of the MiFID go-live in January 2018. By integrating the solution with its front-office Fusion Post-Trade trading system, the bank has gained an end-to-end platform with the ability to support regulations such as EMIR and the Securities Financing Transactions Regulation (SFTR) in the future.
Synechron Builds APAC Focus
New York-based IT and digital consulting firm Synechron has launched a new financial innovations lab in Singapore. The new facility will help strengthen the firm’s offering in the APAC region and partner with its clients on interactive workshops related to key digital strategies such as AI, Blockchain, Data Analytics and RegTech. Synechron also recently partnered with Singapore Polytechnic to co-develop a curriculum for blockchain courses in order to enable further innovation in the region. The new focus on Asia follows the September 2018 appointment of a new APAC head, Mihir Shah, who joined Synechron in November 2017 after 11 years with UBS.