GlobalBlock Launches Digital Assets Offering for UK Clients with FCA-Approved Financial Promotions

GlobalBlock, part of GCEX Group, has launched its digital assets offering for UK clients, providing access to crypto services with institutional-grade support and robust controls. The company’s UK cryptoasset financial promotions have been approved by Archax, the regulated digital assets platform, under the FCA’s cryptoasset financial promotions regime. This approval complements GCEX Group’s existing licences, including FCA authorisation for FX and CFDs, a MiCA licence for crypto-asset services across the EU, and a Virtual Asset Service Provider licence in Dubai.

Available via globalblock.co.uk, the offering includes OTC execution, portfolio solutions for eligible clients, and cryptoasset settlement and invoicing tools for businesses. It is supported by GCEX Group’s institutional infrastructure, liquidity and global counterparty relationships. The launch marks a significant step in GlobalBlock’s integration into the GCEX Group ecosystem following its acquisition in September 2025, and reflects the Group’s strategy to serve high-net-worth individuals, family offices, asset managers and corporates seeking professional access to digital assets.

McKay Brothers and Quincy Data Launch High-Speed Services Linking Illinois Futures Markets with Sydney Trading Hubs

McKay Brothers and Quincy Data are launching new services connecting Illinois futures markets with major trading facilities in Sydney, Australia. The services link the CME in Aurora and ICE Futures in Chicago with Sydney’s Australian Liquidity Centre and Equinix SY5, which host ASX and Cboe Australia respectively.

McKay Brothers will offer private transport capacity, while Quincy Data will distribute its Snapshot Feeds covering equity indices, energy, metals and foreign exchange futures. The connection delivers a round-trip delay of less than 168 milliseconds between North America and Australia. Both companies maintain their Level Playing Field policy, ensuring all clients receive equal access to the same high-performance infrastructure regardless of their size.

B3 Completes Phase Two of CSD System Built on Vermiculus VeriSafe Technology

B3, the Brazilian marketplace operator, has completed the second phase of its new central securities depository (CSD) system, developed using VeriSafe technology from Vermiculus. This represents one of the largest CSD transformation projects globally, with Vermiculus and B3 delivering a major phase into production for the second consecutive year.

The elastically scalable platform now supports the full range of complex transactional rules required by a modern CSD, including settlement transactions, participant transfers, deposits, withdrawals and IPOs. VeriSafe also handles creation and redemption processes for all Brazilian certificate types, including ETFs, depository receipts and fractional shares. The microservice-based architecture enables B3 to introduce new products with shorter time-to-market whilst maintaining operational resilience.

Vermiculus and B3 are now progressing to the third and final phase, which will replace B3’s existing corporate actions module and further extend the system’s capabilities for high-volume corporate action processing.

S&P Global’s Capital IQ Pro Updated with AI and More Datasets

S&P Global has updated its Capital IQ Pro platform with artificial intelligence capabilities and expanded datasets.

The update integrates ProntoNLP sentiment analysis into document workflows and follows the acquisition of Drift AI to automate Excel-based financial modelling.

The developments build upon the 2025 purchase of ProntoNLP to enhance the assessment of earnings call transcripts and textual data.

Warren Breakstone, head of data and research at S&P Market Intelligence, said the company continues to deliver new AI-powered capabilities while unlocking the platform to support agentic use cases.

Expanded data coverage now includes four million structured securities, biopharma pipeline analytics and 20,000 private-market investment documents.

New ICE Data Product Provides Transparency into Private Markets

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has created ICE Private Credit Intelligence to increase transparency in the private credit market.

The platform establishes a data infrastructure layer for the US$40 trillion asset class by offering secure data sharing and standardised reference sets. Apollo serves as the anchor partner for the launch, which aims to provide data consistency similar to public credit markets.

“By bringing our vast data science expertise, and working with a leading firm like Apollo, we’re excited to launch a new service that will solve crucial challenges in the private credit market and ultimately offer new opportunities to our customers,” said Chris Edmonds, president of ICE Fixed Income and Data Services.

Future updates will include performance analytics and pricing insights to assist with portfolio management and risk assessment.

ThetaRay and Matrix USA Target AML’s ‘Last-Mile’ Modernisation Challenge

Financial institutions facing intensifying regulatory expectations around anti-money laundering (AML) analytics are exploring ways to introduce advanced detection capabilities without dismantling long-established compliance infrastructures. A newly announced partnership between ThetaRay and Matrix USA targets this challenge, positioning AI as an overlay rather than a wholesale replacement for existing transaction monitoring systems.

Regulatory momentum is accelerating the shift. Initiatives led by the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), alongside the European Union’s incoming Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (AMLR) and the creation of the Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA), are pushing firms toward more sophisticated analytical approaches. Supervisory expectations increasingly emphasise demonstrable effectiveness in detecting financial crime rather than simple adherence to procedural compliance frameworks.

For many banks and FinTechs, however, the practical constraint lies in the architecture of their current AML systems. Transaction monitoring environments often rely on rules engines that have evolved over decades and underpin mission-critical compliance programmes. Replacing them outright can be operationally risky and prohibitively expensive.

The partnership between ThetaRay and Matrix USA is framed around that operational reality. Matrix USA brings experience integrating AML and financial-crime technology across global banking environments, including firms operating hybrid or legacy infrastructures. ThetaRay contributes its Cognitive AI detection engine and investigation tooling, designed to operate alongside existing controls.

“Banks want to modernize, but many operate mission-critical AML programs that were built over decades,” said Lior Blik, CEO of Matrix USA. “This partnership gives them a practical path forward: enhance their current systems with AI, adopt better analytics, and meet regulatory expectations—without rebuilding their entire stack.”

The joint approach centres on deploying machine-learning-driven scoring and anomaly detection as an additional analytical layer on top of existing rules-based monitoring platforms. Rather than replacing legacy systems, the objective is to augment them with behavioural analytics and automated investigation capabilities.

“As global AML standards evolve, institutions need partners who understand both the legacy landscape and the new AI-powered future,” said Idan Keret, Chief Revenue Officer at Matrix USA. “ThetaRay’s AI combined with Matrix’s delivery expertise allows banks to strengthen detection, reduce investigation workload, and move forward with confidence without throwing away their original investments.”

Industry conversations around AML transformation frequently reflect similar operational constraints. According to ThetaRay executives, banks increasingly want faster paths to modernisation that avoid multi-year technology rebuilds.

“Every conversation we’re having with banks right now comes back to the same issue: they don’t have time for another multi-year AML transformation. What they need is speed, certainty, and proof that AI can deliver results inside the systems they already run. This partnership is built around that commercial reality,” said Jeff Otten, Chief Revenue Officer at ThetaRay.

The broader strategic question, however, is not whether artificial intelligence will play a role in financial-crime compliance, but how it is deployed in a way that remains transparent, accountable and regulator-aligned.

“AML is entering its next phase. The question is no longer whether AI belongs in financial crime compliance, but how responsibly and effectively it’s deployed at scale. Partnerships like this are what turn innovation into infrastructure,” said Brad Levy, CEO of ThetaRay.

In practical terms, the collaboration focuses on combining ThetaRay’s AI-driven detection capabilities and investigation tooling with Matrix’s implementation and integration expertise. The goal is to enable banks to introduce machine-learning analytics, automate elements of alert investigation, and reduce false positives while preserving existing compliance platforms.

In AML compliance, the “last mile” is the operational stage where alerts generated by monitoring systems must be converted into defensible investigative outcomes – encompassing alert prioritisation, investigation workflows, analyst decision support, and ultimately suspicious activity reporting. Layering new analytical capabilities onto established rules-based systems offers institutions a pragmatic way to strengthen this stage of the compliance process while preserving existing technology investments, and helping firms prepare for evolving AML supervisory expectations across the U.S. and Europe through 2026.

Bite Investments Acquires Portfolio Intelligence Platform Untap

Bite Investments, a technology provider for the alternative investments sector, has announced the acquisition of Untap, a portfolio management and fund-intelligence platform. This move integrates Untap’s data capabilities into Bite Stream, Bite Investments’ flagship software, to enhance portfolio analytics and ESG reporting. The acquisition follows a period of strategic growth for the company, supported by recent investments from NewSpring Capital, Proof Point Capital, and Osage Venture Capital.

The integration of Untap allows Bite Stream to offer private-market managers a more comprehensive suite of tools, including AI-driven fund intelligence and KPI tracking. Untap’s flexible data model facilitates the collection of financial, operational, and qualitative information within a single environment. This assists managers in meeting the growing demand for transparency regarding return generation and fund performance, while also streamlining investor onboarding and communications.

Moving forward, the combined platform aims to bridge the gap between investor engagement and underlying portfolio data. While both platforms will continue to support their existing clients, the development roadmap focuses on unifying the user experience and strengthening data infrastructure. Legal and financial advice for the transaction was provided to Untap by Hart Brown, PwC, and Kitra Advisory.

Broadridge Integrates Crypto.com Into Global NYFIX Network

Broadridge Financial Solutions has integrated Crypto.com into its NYFIX order routing network, marking the first cryptocurrency expansion for the service in Asia. This collaboration allows institutional crypto orders to flow through the same FIX-based infrastructure used for traditional asset classes. By linking their technology, market participants on the NYFIX Marketplace can now route orders directly to Crypto.com, leveraging the platform’s liquidity and low-latency performance within a standardised, secure workflow.

The partnership aims to reduce operational friction and market fragmentation by providing consistent order routing and data handling via the industry-standard FIX protocol. For Crypto.com, the integration provides immediate access to Broadridge’s global network of over 2,200 buy-side and sell-side participants. This move reflects an increasing institutional demand for digital assets and Broadridge’s strategy to provide reliable, compliant connectivity across both traditional and emerging financial markets.

Orange Investment Advisors Modernises Operations with Clearwater Analytics’ Enfusion Platform

Orange Investment Advisors, a credit-focused investment manager, has successfully implemented Enfusion by Clearwater Analytics. The transition to the integrated front-to-back platform is designed to modernise operations across the firm’s structured credit portfolio, replacing fragmented legacy systems with a unified solution for portfolio and order management.

The deployment provides a single execution platform that integrates trading, compliance, and real-time data. By consolidating these functions, the firm can manage positions without the need to transfer data between disparate tools. Furthermore, the combination of Enfusion and Clearwater’s Beacon platform introduces advanced risk modelling capabilities, including scenario analysis, factor attribution, and stress testing based on a single, reconciled dataset.

This operational shift reduces the time required for manual reconciliation across the front, middle, and back offices. Consequently, Orange Investment Advisors can produce institutional-grade structured credit reports with greater speed and accuracy. These efficiencies allow the team to focus on higher-value tasks while providing clients with more transparent and timely reporting.

Nasdaq and Boerse Stuttgart Group Partner to Modernise European Post-Trade Infrastructure

Nasdaq has entered into a strategic partnership with Seturion, the Boerse Stuttgart Group’s pan-European settlement platform for tokenised assets. The collaboration aims to address the fragmentation of Europe’s capital markets by leveraging distributed ledger technology (DLT) to create a more unified settlement ecosystem. Initially focusing on structured products, Nasdaq’s European trading venues will connect to Seturion to facilitate the trading and settlement of tokenised securities.

The partnership seeks to improve market efficiency by reducing the operational complexity and costs associated with traditional post-trade processes. Seturion supports various asset classes on public and private DLTs, allowing for cash settlement against central bank money and on-chain cash. By maintaining alignment with European regulations, such as MiFID II and the DLT Pilot Regime, the initiative preserves trusted market structures while providing issuers and investors with faster, more cost-efficient settlement cycles.

Moving forward, Nasdaq and Seturion intend to expand this network to include a broader range of financial institutions, brokers, and issuers across Europe. This long-term expansion aims to accelerate the adoption of tokenised securities and streamline the European settlement landscape through a single, integrated platform.