LSEG Launches Digital Settlement House for Instantaneous Cross-Network Settlements

LSEG has launched Digital Settlement House (LSEG DiSH), an open-access platform facilitating instantaneous settlement between independent payment networks, both on and off-chain. Utilising DiSH Cash – commercial bank deposits held on the DiSH ledger – the service enables the 24/7 movement of money across multiple currencies and jurisdictions. It supports Payment versus Payment (PvP) and Delivery versus Payment (DvP) models, providing a real cash leg for foreign exchange and digital asset transactions across traditional and digital infrastructures.

Operating within LSEG’s Post Trade Solutions business, the platform allows participants to orchestrate payments on any connected network. This capability unlocks trapped assets and optimises liquidity through new intraday borrowing and lending tools. By reducing settlement timelines, the service mitigates settlement risk and increases collateral availability. The launch follows a successful Proof of Concept with Digital Asset and a financial consortium on the Canton Network, which demonstrated the effective tokenisation and transfer of commercial bank deposits.

Integral Triples Infrastructure at Equinix Singapore to Meet Regional Demand

Integral, a currency technology provider, has tripled its infrastructure footprint at the Equinix SG1 data centre in Singapore. This expansion is a direct response to soaring regional demand and significantly increased transaction volumes, with the company now processing over one million tickets daily at the facility. To support this growth, Integral is utilising Equinix Fabric, a software-defined interconnection service, to establish private and direct connections with cloud service providers, key partners, and customers.

The expanded SG1 facility serves clients across the wider Asia-Pacific region, supporting the company’s robust growth and recent client partnerships. This investment in infrastructure ensures scalability and reliability, allowing Integral to manage higher system loads without compromising speed or performance. Alongside its Singapore operations, the company maintains infrastructure within Equinix facilities in London (LD3), New York (NY4), and Tokyo (TY4).

STP Investment Services Integrates Passthrough into BluePrint Platform

STP Investment Services has integrated Passthrough, a subscription automation platform, directly into its proprietary BluePrint ecosystem. This enhancement is designed to streamline the experience for fund managers and investors by reducing administrative friction and improving data accuracy. By embedding Passthrough’s technology, STP aims to accelerate the onboarding process for Limited Partners (LPs) while maintaining a fully connected operational environment.

The integration enables a seamless transition from investor subscription to ongoing servicing without leaving the BluePrint platform. Data collected through Passthrough’s digital workflows now populates directly into STP’s middle- and back-office systems, eliminating the need for manual reconciliation and redundant data entry. This creates a unified ecosystem that offers faster document exchange and greater process visibility for both General Partners (GPs) and LPs throughout the fund lifecycle.

Clearstream to Distribute Blackstone Private Market Strategies on its Fund Platform

Clearstream, the post-trade services provider of Deutsche Börse Group, is adding private market investment strategies from Blackstone to its platform. This initiative aims to broaden access to private market investments for individual investors by leveraging Clearstream’s network of over 300 distribution partners, which includes major global wealth managers with a significant presence in Europe and Asia. The collaboration is designed to simplify the operational complexities often associated with these funds, allowing wealth managers to distribute them to a wider client base at scale.

Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative asset manager with over USD $1.2 trillion in assets, offers opportunities across private equity, real estate, private credit, and infrastructure. To support this, Clearstream provides a suite of services covering order routing via its Vestima platform, settlement, and asset servicing, alongside frameworks for KYC and distribution oversight.

SimCorp Offers Iteration of Axioma Analytics Suite for Frequent Rebalancing

SimCorp has created its Axioma Worldwide Equity Factor Risk Model: Trading Horizon, which enables forecasts risk over a twenty-day period and provides daily updates on factor exposures for strategies requiring frequent rebalancing.

The new iteration of the finance technology giant’s analytics suite incorporates style factors such as short interest and opinion divergence to track liquidity and volatility across global markets.

SimCorp said the model’s release comes at a “critical time” after AI-related trades exaggerated momentum and liquidity risks and as trade spats are distorting currency movements.

“Markets are moving faster than ever, and traditional risk models often fail to capture short-term dynamics,” Ian Lumb, head of analytics product management, said at the launch.

Investors use the model as a leading indicator for rebalancing decisions and for understanding risk sources during volatile periods, Lumb added.

The software allows users to quantify exchange-rate sensitivity and monitor momentum to manage effects from tariff disputes or sector rotations. Equity factor risk models are mathematical tools used by financial institutions to identify and quantify the drivers of return and risk within stock portfolios.

Arcesium Expands Asia Presence with Hong Kong Office Opening

Arcesium has opened a new office in Hong Kong as the investment lifecycle and data management technology provider seeks to expand into the Asia Pacific market.

This expansion establishes a physical presence in the region to provide data infrastructure and operational technology to local financial institutions.
The office supports a client base of asset managers, hedge funds and banks while assisting with new fund launches and regional expansions.

“Hong Kong is acknowledged as a leading financial centre in Asia, home to a uniquely dynamic intersection of global capital, regional innovation and regulatory sophistication,” said chief executive Gaurav Suri. “Opening an office in Hong Kong is part of our strategic commitment to supporting clients at the centre of Asia’s financial ecosystem.”

Arcesium, which supports more than US$5.3 trillion in assets under management, adds Hong Kong to its list of offices in New York, Hyderabad, London and Lisbon.

Broadridge Makes Strategic Investment in DeepSee to Accelerate AI Post-Trade Automation

Broadridge Financial Solutions has expanded its partnership and made a strategic investment in DeepSee, a US-based company specialising in agentic AI technology. As part of this agreement, Broadridge has acquired a minority ownership stake in DeepSee, and Tom Carey, President of Broadridge Global Technology and Operations, will join the DeepSee Board of Directors. This collaboration represents a significant step in Broadridge’s strategy to utilise harmonised data and AI to optimise global post-trade operations, aiming to accelerate AI transformation across capital markets.

The initial focus of the partnership is the deployment of AI-powered email orchestration, which converts traditional inboxes into intelligent, automated workflows. By embedding AI agents into post-trade processes, the solution automates tasks such as fails research and inventory optimisation, facilitating faster responses and improved compliance. The technology has already been deployed across Broadridge’s Business Process Outsourcing Operations, serving over 60 clients, and is now available for firms to integrate within their own systems via the Broadridge Platform or on a standalone basis.

SimCorp Expands Partnership with MSCI to Integrate Private Market Data

SimCorp has expanded its collaboration with MSCI, providing buy-side firms using the SimCorp One platform with direct access to private market datasets. This integration allows clients to access data at fund, asset, and deal levels, aiming to resolve the fragmentation and inconsistent reporting often associated with private market investments. By aggregating high-quality data within a single platform, the partnership seeks to simplify access to critical investment information.

Building on a 2022 agreement regarding benchmark data, this development introduces access to MSCI’s Private Asset Transparency Data and a managed service for automated document collection. These tools cover nearly 28,000 funds across all private asset classes, offering detailed visibility into historical holdings, performance, and cash flows. This integration supports SimCorp’s broader strategy to manage public and private assets within a unified ecosystem, following the recent launch of SimCorp Alternatives.

FMO Taps Fenergo to Modernise KYC and Onboarding Across Emerging-Market Portfolios

Dutch development bank FMO has selected Fenergo to modernise its client onboarding and know-your-customer operations, as it looks to streamline compliance across a diverse portfolio of investments in emerging markets.

The bank is deploying Fenergo’s client lifecycle management (CLM) platform alongside its Document Agent capability, with the objective of accelerating onboarding timelines, improving transparency, and supporting consistent regulatory oversight across jurisdictions with varying data quality and regulatory maturity.

For development banks such as FMO, KYC is structurally more complex than in many commercial banking environments. Portfolios often span project finance, blended finance, equity investments and long-dated development initiatives, frequently involving counterparties in higher-risk or less digitised markets. That complexity places pressure on onboarding teams to balance robust due diligence with the need to maintain momentum in capital deployment.

Against that backdrop, FMO’s selection of Fenergo reflects a broader shift among regulated institutions towards more industrialised, workflow-driven KYC frameworks that reduce manual effort while preserving auditability. By standardising how documentation is collected, assessed and governed, the bank expects to reduce friction in onboarding while maintaining alignment with supervisory expectations.

According to Friso Schellekens, Director of KYC at FMO, the decision was driven by the need for a platform that could operate effectively across demanding regulatory environments. “Fenergo stood out for its proven ability to handle comprehensive customer due diligence in emerging markets, amid demanding regulatory requirements,” he said. Schellekens added that alignment with FMO’s governance framework was a critical factor, particularly as the bank continues to expand and diversify its portfolio.

From an operational perspective, the implementation is intended to shorten onboarding cycles and free compliance teams from repetitive, document-heavy tasks. Automating elements of document ingestion and lifecycle management allows KYC specialists to focus on higher-risk cases and judgement-based reviews, while generating more consistent data and reporting outputs for internal oversight.

The deployment also signals growing interest among development finance institutions in technology platforms traditionally associated with tier-one commercial banks. While CLM adoption has been well established in large financial institutions, its extension into development banking reflects increasing regulatory scrutiny and rising expectations around transparency, data lineage and audit readiness.

For Fenergo, the engagement marks its first development banking client, extending the platform’s footprint into a segment with distinct regulatory and operational characteristics. Ruth Ormsby, Managing Director for EMEA at Fenergo, described the partnership as aligned with the firm’s longer-term product direction, noting a focus on moving beyond static workflow tools towards more adaptive, intelligence-led compliance systems.

More broadly, the deal underscores a common theme emerging across KYC and client onboarding programmes: the transition from fragmented, manual processes towards end-to-end platforms that can scale across products, geographies and regulatory regimes. As development banks continue to play a central role in financing growth and sustainability initiatives in emerging markets, the ability to combine speed, transparency and regulatory control is becoming a strategic requirement rather than a back-office concern.

Encompass Establishes Executive Advisory Board to Support CDI and KYC Strategy

Encompass has formed an Executive Advisory Board (EAB) as it looks to strengthen the strategic direction of its Corporate Digital Identity (CDI) platform and its application across KYC and compliance workflows. The board is intended to provide senior-level insight as Encompass expands internationally and responds to growing regulatory, data, and technology pressures facing financial institutions.

Rather than a governance body in the formal sense, the EAB is positioned as a source of external challenge and expertise. Its remit spans innovation, customer-centric growth, governance and risk practices, and the practical use of AI in KYC operations, with CDI positioned as the underlying data layer supporting those objectives.

The board is chaired by Doris Honold, who has more than 25 years’ experience in senior leadership roles across global financial institutions, with a focus on transformation, governance, operational resilience, and organisational leadership. Honold has been part of Encompass’s Executive Board since 2021, giving continuity between advisory input and day-to-day strategy.

Alongside Honold, the EAB includes senior industry figures such as David Hudson and Colin Bell, both of whom have held leadership roles at institutions including JP Morgan, HSBC, and Standard Chartered Bank. Collectively, the group brings experience across governance, risk management, compliance, and digital transformation—areas where banks continue to face rising expectations from regulators and supervisors.

From Encompass’s perspective, the board is intended to help the firm anticipate how compliance models are evolving, particularly as institutions look to modernise KYC processes and introduce more automation and AI-driven decisioning. The emphasis is less on product promotion and more on aligning CDI capabilities with how banks actually implement change across operations, data, and control frameworks.

Commenting on the launch, Encompass CEO Wayne Johnson said:

“The launch of the EAB marks a pivotal moment for Encompass and the industry. As financial institutions face unprecedented regulatory and operational challenges, the EAB will ensure we remain at the forefront of innovation.

Leveraging the expertise of global leaders, we can accelerate the adoption of CDI as the essential data foundation for innovation, including AI. By, building trust, improving transparency, and enabling institutions to meet complex KYC requirements with confidence, CDI unlocks the full potential of emerging technologies. This initiative reinforces our mission to deliver transformative solutions that strengthen resilience across the financial ecosystem.”

In practical terms, the EAB will feed into Encompass’s strategic planning by providing market-level insight on where KYC and identity verification are heading, including how regulatory expectations around data quality, explainability, and resilience are likely to develop. This reflects a broader industry shift away from static compliance tooling toward data-driven foundations that can support multiple regulatory and operational use cases.

For Encompass, the creation of the EAB signals an effort to formalise that dialogue with senior practitioners and to ensure its CDI approach remains aligned with real-world implementation challenges faced by global financial institutions.