ACA Group Expands Broker-Dealer Compliance Support with FINOP Consulting Acquisition

In a strategic move to deepen its support for broker-dealer clients, ACA Group has acquired FINOP Consulting, an outsourcing firm specializing in financial and operational compliance for broker-dealers. Led by industry veteran and FINOP founder Dan Beaton, the acquisition enables ACA to expand its capacity in financial operations (FinOps) services, particularly for clients needing precise alignment with SEC and FINRA requirements in areas such as recordkeeping, accounting, and reporting. 

This acquisition feeds into ACA’s broader compliance platform, ACA Signature, which delivers scalable support for financial operations. By acting as a licensed Series 27 and Series 28 principal, ACA provides expertise in maintaining accurate records, preparing financial filings, and ensuring overall regulatory compliance. 

Patrick Olson, CEO at ACA Group, views this move as critical for broker-dealers facing increasing regulatory demands: “This acquisition allows us to provide a more complete solution to broker-dealers, who are under immense pressure to maintain compliance in a rapidly evolving regulatory landscape”.  

Beaton, now ACA’s Director, echoes this sentiment, noting, “Our collaboration with ACA means broker-dealers gain access to comprehensive GRC services at a time when regulatory pressures are only growing. Together, we’re equipped to navigate these complexities for our clients.” 

ACA’s FinOps offerings provide broker-dealers with key benefits, including the ability to stay compliant with evolving regulations, allowing them to focus on core business objectives without the burden of daily regulatory tasks. Additionally, by outsourcing, firms can reduce full-time employee (FTE) costs. ACA’s use of advanced financial tools further supports clients by optimizing reporting processes and ensuring data accuracy. 

This latest acquisition continues ACA’s tradition of evolving to meet industry needs. Specific financial terms were not disclosed.

DTCC’s Enhanced VaR Calculator for Potential Cross-Margin Reductions

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has updated its Value at Risk (VaR) calculator to include cross-margining and repo transaction functionalities, aimed at improving firms’ risk management capabilities ahead of expanded U.S. Treasury clearing requirements expected in 2025 and 2026. These enhancements, introduced through the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation’s (FICC) Government Securities Division (GSD), offer users more nuanced tools for evaluating margin requirements and cross-margining benefits. 

The enhanced calculator allows users to gauge potential cross-margin reductions at FICC based on sample portfolios that include both GSD cash positions and CME Group futures. According to Tim Hulse, Managing Director of Financial Risk & Governance at DTCC, these updates are part of a broader effort to “support greater transparency for market participants,” aligning with DTCC’s focus on enhancing understanding and management of margin obligations in a rapidly evolving market. 

This development comes as FICC’s GSD experiences record volumes, clearing an average of $8.8 trillion daily as of October 2024. The new capabilities are seen as a valuable tool for firms navigating this high-volume environment, allowing for optimized capital efficiency through consolidated margin management and reducing potential excess liquidity needs. 

The cross-margining functionality, specifically, empowers firms to explore margin savings across combined GSD and futures positions, presenting an opportunity for capital efficiencies that may mitigate the need for liquidation in volatile markets. These tools thus provide market participants with an accessible means to assess and respond to risk and margin requirements, in preparation for the anticipated regulatory changes. 

As Laura Klimpel, Managing Director, Head of DTCC’s Fixed Income and Financing Solutions, notes, “FICC continues to evolve with the markets to support industry needs.” This expansion of the VaR calculator underscores DTCC’s commitment to delivering tools that not only bolster transparency but also support firms’ operational readiness for future market and regulatory shifts. 

BondWave Acquires Bitvore’s Fixed-Income Analytics Unit

Fixed income-focussed FinTech BondWave has completed its acquisition of Bitvore’s data analytics business, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to scour unstructured data sources for bond market clients.

The technology will be incorporated into BondWave’s Effi fixed income data and analytics platform to “provide users with enhanced transparency and further support our mission and vision as a firm”, said chief executive Michael Ruvo.

With the acquisition, BondWave –which was formed in 2001 – will enable clients to extract data from publicly available sources and crunch it into a useable format for analysis. The company’s other capabilities include portfolio analytics and reporting and proposal generation, as well as tools that support best execution, fair pricing, and mark-up monitoring and disclosure on both a pre- and post-trade basis.

Arcesium Adds Regulatory Reporting Automation to Opterra Platform

Data management service provider Arcesium has launched a regulatory reporting extension to its Opterra data lifecycle management platform.

The New York-based company said the new tooling enables clients to utilise data they already have to automate the collection and presentation of information required for compliance processes.

The extension was created to meet growing demand for ever-more granular data from regulators. Arcesium said clients will now be able to automate disclosure processes using their data on trades, positions, P&Ls and accounts, saving time and resources.

“COOs and compliance leaders are expressing an urgent need to modernise their reporting processes, save time and reduce costs,” said Neil Visnapuu, product owner for regulatory reporting at Arcesium. “This solution empowers them to do precisely that. By auto-populating reports and completing disclosures… managers can release significant resources currently tied up in gathering data from fragmented sources. This streamlined way of working also empowers them to quickly adapt to any future regulatory demands”.

Seneca ESG Joins Private Equity Sustainability Reporting Initiative

Data management and software provider Seneca ESG has become the latest vendor to join the ESG Data Convergence Initiative (EDCI), which provides a common sustainability reporting framework for private equity.

Seneca said that through its membership, the company will help clients feed data pertinent to EDCI’s core set of standardised metrics via a dedicated API. That data can be accessed by limited partners to help guide their decision-making processes.

“By joining EDCI, Seneca ESG strengthens its commitment to advancing responsible investing and transparent ESG reporting in private equity markets,” said Seneca ESG chief executive Jonathan Ha. “Unified ESG metrics allow all stakeholders to gain clearer insights and measure progress in ways that were previously challenging.”

The EDCI was created by a group of global investors and Boston Consulting Group.

BlueFlame AI Builds GenAI-Supported Workflow Automator

BlueFlame AI has built a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI)-supported workflow automation tools to streamline their private markets data processes.
The New York-based startup’s Blueprints also uses large language models to query and process data from internal and external source, helping firms to boost productivity and make better informed decisions, BlueFlame AI said.

“By eliminating the technical barriers traditionally associated with AI implementation, we’re democratising access to sophisticated automation tools that can dramatically improve how investment firms operate and make decisions,” said chief executive and co-founder Raj Bakhru.

“For example, our clients can run a Blueprint to create IC memos, analyse earnings reports, or prepare them for an upcoming prospect meeting, reducing hours of manual work to minutes.”

BlueFlame was launched two years ago and its Nexus platform is designed to help firms mine and make sense of information stored in unstructured sources.

The company said that Blueprints can improve the accuracy of private markets research and analysis and that clients can interact with it through simple natural language prompts.

S&P Global Unveils Document Summary and Insights Tool

S&P Global clients now have access to a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI)-supported platform that can scan, extract and analyse critical data points from text and other content-based documents.

Document Intelligence resides within S&P’s Capital IQ Pro product and works on company filings, earnings call transcripts, investor presentations, news and research. The company has also unveiled ChatIQ, which enables easier engagement with research.

“The addition of GenAI-enabled Document Intelligence and ChatIQ will further enhance the user experience, improve discoverability and shorten time to insights through the provision of some of the most modern and innovative tools in our industry,” said Warren Breakstone, global head of Capital IQ Solutions for S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Document Intelligence will highlight key phrases within documents, present smart summaries and uses natural language processing to establish sentiment scores.

China’s BOCOM Fintech Named as a GLEIF Validation Agent

A Bank of Communications (BOCOM) subsidiary in Shanghai has been named a validation agent by the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation, a move that the organisation describes as a milestone in China’s adoption of LEIs.

BOCOM Fintech will use the LEI to smooth cross-border identification, simplify Know Your Customer (KYC) processes and document requirements for offshore businesses, accelerate identity verification and reduce compliance risks, GLEIF said.

China’s own entity-monitoring agency, the Beijing National Institute of Financial Standardization (NIFS), supports BOCOM Fintech’s new status.

“By becoming a validation agent in the Global LEI System, we are better positioned as a FinTech company and aim to contribute more effectively to China’s economic opening-up,” said BOCOM Fintech president Tang Yi. “We are firmly committed to exploring innovative applications of the LEI in anti-money laundering (AML), maritime trade, and cross-border e-commerce, thus promoting digital finance and economic development.”

Market Data Startup Databento Boost Fund Raising to $30m

Market data vendor and technology startup Databento has boosted its fundraising to US$30 million with a recent $10m capital boost from investors including Belvedere Trading, Clear Street and Lightscape Partners.

Databento builds APIs to better serve financial institutions with high-fidelity market data. The pay-as-you-go service enables clients to select data distributed from almost 50 exchanges worldwide in more than a dozen formats.

The Salt Lake City, Utah-based company said the new finance would be used to enhance its offering by extending the historical and geographical coverage of the data it feeds to clients.

Tradeweb and Tokyo Stock Exchange Partner to Enhance Liquidity Access for Japanese ETFs

Tradeweb Markets Inc. and the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) have formed a strategic partnership to boost institutional access to liquidity in Japanese exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The collaboration introduces a direct link between Tradeweb’s platform and TSE’s CONNEQTOR request-for-quote (RFQ) platform, enabling Tradeweb buy-side clients to access CONNEQTOR’s liquidity providers when executing Japan-listed ETF trades. The new connection was inaugurated with a transaction by Global X Japan.

Tradeweb’s integration with CONNEQTOR allows clients to seek quotes from a broad network of market makers via the Tradeweb interface, ensuring they receive the most competitive pricing. Clients can leverage Tradeweb’s AiEX tool for automated execution and benefit from TSE’s post-trade infrastructure, further enhancing transaction efficiency. This partnership builds on Tradeweb’s established multi-region ETF trading capabilities, as Tradeweb reported a significant 30% year-over-year increase in Asia clients’ ETF transaction volumes.

Enrico Bruni, Head of Europe and Asia Business at Tradeweb, commented: “This exciting collaboration between Tradeweb and TSE’s CONNEQTOR platform demonstrates our focus on linking liquidity pools for the benefit of institutional investors looking to transfer risk with a higher degree of certainty. We are in the business of enhancing clients’ execution experience, and we look forward to bringing more time and cost efficiencies to investors trading Japanese ETFs, both locally and globally.”

Moriyuki Iwanaga, President of Tokyo Stock Exchange, added: “CONNEQTOR has been developed as a platform to enable investors to trade ETFs “faster and cheaper”. We hope that the new connection with Tradeweb will promote investment in the Japanese market by allowing investors outside Japan, who have had difficulty using CONNEQTOR, to easily access ETFs listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange from overseas. TSE will continue to strive to provide and develop a highly convenient market environment, where investors can enjoy better prices and smoother execution.”