SC Ventures Leads Strategic Investment in One Trading to Launch First Crypto Perpetual Futures in EU

SC Ventures, the innovation and fintech investment arm of Standard Chartered, has made a strategic investment in One Trading, the European crypto-asset exchange. The investment round also saw participation from existing investor MiddleGame Ventures, alongside Valar and SpeedInvest. Although the financial details were not disclosed, the funds will support One Trading’s launch of the first crypto perpetual futures in the European Union (EU) as a MiFID II-compliant trading venue.

In July 2024, One Trading secured an Organised Trading Facility (OTF) license from the Dutch financial market regulator, making it the first regulated crypto perpetual futures exchange in the EU. This approval enables the exchange to offer crypto derivatives, accessible to both retail and institutional clients, marking a significant milestone in One Trading’s efforts to bring onshore crypto futures trading within the EU regulatory framework.

BGC Group to Launch FMX Futures Exchange for U.S. Interest Rate Futures

BGC Group, Inc, in collaboration with ten leading global investment banks and market-making firms, has announced the launch of the FMX Futures Exchange (FMX) for U.S. interest rate futures. The new exchange will go live on Monday, 23 September 2024, at 9:00 p.m. ET, initially offering Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) futures, with plans to introduce U.S. Treasury futures in early 2025.

FMX aims to deliver capital savings to its clients through its clearing partnership with LCH Limited, a major clearer of interest rate swaps. LCH will facilitate cross-margining for eligible U.S. interest rate futures using $225 billion in collateral held by its members. FMX is a subsidiary of FMX Holdings LLC, whose equity owners include prominent financial institutions such as Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and J.P. Morgan. The company also operates in the U.S. Treasuries and foreign exchange markets.

Broadridge Expands Distributed Ledger Repo Platform with Tier-1 Canadian Bank Implementation

Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. has announced that a Tier-1 Canadian bank has implemented its Distributed Ledger Repo (DLR) platform to manage High-Quality Liquid Asset (HQLA) treasury securities. This marks a significant milestone as the bank becomes the first to adopt this use case on Broadridge’s DLR platform, highlighting the potential of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) in revolutionising financial operations.

This implementation aims to not only simplify the bank’s workflow and generate cost savings but also lay the foundation for further DLT use cases that can drive greater efficiencies and innovation in the financial sector, according to the company.

As more firms embrace digital transformation strategies, Broadridge continues to deploy DLT to drive operational efficiencies and cost savings. The DLR platform is expanding globally across buy-side and sell-side firms, generating a network effect that supports diverse transaction types.

Bloomberg Lets Customers Test Drive its Datasets

Bloomberg is throwing open its data trove to prospective users, enabling them to interact with the information before deciding on whether to buy into new datasets.

The Virtual Data Room will give customers the chance to explore the coverage, quality and usability of Bloomberg’s Bulk Data License datasets. The service is designed to accelerate the data onboarding process, which usually takes a minimum of three months, New York-based Bloomberg said.

“The Virtual Data Room is akin to test driving a new car before you buy it,” said Brian Doherty, Global Head of Data License at Bloomberg.

BlueFlame AI Applies GenAI to Alternative Markets Data Processes

BlueFlame AI said it has made the process of mining and analysing data from documents easier for private and other alternative market participants with the creation of its Nexus product.

The offering, backed by generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), enables clients to pull critical data from unstructured sources such as management and board decks, presentations, contracts, reports and other documents, the London-based company said.

“In today’s data-driven investment landscape, the ability to quickly extract valuable insights from vast amounts of unstructured information is crucial,” BlueFlame AI chief executive Raj Bakhru said.

NeoXam’s Impress Deployed to Manage Ecofi Reporting Process

NeoXam has been selected to handle the entire reporting process for Ecofi, Groupe Credit Cooperatif’s asset manager.

The France-based financial software and technology provider has signed a deal to deploy its SaaS-based Impress platform to manage the French banking group’s data collection, quality checks, performance analytics computation as well as reporting templating and generation for the full range of its funds.

Novatus Secures $40 Million Growth Funding from Silversmith Capital Partners

Novatus Global, a leader in regulatory technology for financial institutions, has raised $40 million from Boston based growth equity firm Silversmith Capital Partners. This funding marks a significant step for Novatus, enabling the company to expand globally and enhance its technology amid an increasingly complex regulatory landscape. 

Founded in 2019 by experienced industry professionals, Novatus has quickly built a strong reputation among top banks, asset managers, and financial institutions. Over the past year, the company has seen its revenue more than triple, reflecting the growing demand for its compliance solutions. The investment from Silversmith will help Novatus enhance its flagship platform, En:ACT, a cloud-native SaaS solution that simplifies complex transaction reporting requirements across various global jurisdictions. 

Andrew Hedley, Co-Founder and Partner of Novatus, emphasized the alignment between the two companies. “Silversmith shares our vision of creating products that make our clients’ operations safer and more efficient,” he said. “This investment will allow us to deepen our commitment to innovation while accelerating our international expansion, particularly in North America.” 

Co-Founder and Partner Mathew Ranson highlighted the company’s unique approach to transaction reporting, drawing on the founders deep operational knowledge of the transaction reporting space and its challenges. “We built Novatus with a focus on automation and technology, moving away from human-driven processes. Silversmith recognized the potential of our En:ACT platform, which leverages AI and machine learning to address regulatory challenges with fresh thinking.” 

Silversmith’s Principal, Ned Kingsley, echoed this sentiment, expressing confidence in Novatus’ future. “We look for founders who solve real-world problems, and Andrew and Matt have done exactly that. We’re excited to support their continued growth,” Kingsley noted. 

Alan Robertson, Partner at Maven Capital Partners, which had previously invested in Novatus, praised the company’s progress. “Since our initial investment, client adoption of En:ACT has driven a 13-fold increase in annual recurring revenues. We remain committed to supporting Novatus in scaling globally and enhancing its market-leading platform,” Robertson stated. 

This new partnership will also see Silversmith’s Todd MacLean and Ned Kingsley joining the Novatus board, further reinforcing the strategic alignment between the two firms.  

By combining deep industry knowledge with AI-powered technology, Novatus is well positioned to help its clients navigate an evolving global landscape with greater confidence and agility. 

Wise Platform Joins AbbeyCross to Enhance Global FX Payment Connectivity

AbbeyCross, the FX payment connectivity provider, has announced the addition of Wise Platform as its newest payment partner. Wise Platform, Wise’s global payments infrastructure, enables banks, financial institutions, and enterprises worldwide to facilitate fast, secure, and cost-effective international payments. By leveraging Wise’s infrastructure, which connects directly to five payment systems and collaborates with over 90 banking partners across 160+ countries, AbbeyCross users will benefit from faster and transparent FX payment rates, including emerging market rates, and an improved settlement experience.

The partnership aligns with AbbeyCross’s mission to enhance the FX payments market by offering multi-lateral access to a range of FX providers via a single integration. This approach aims to reduce technical barriers, enhance price transparency, and mitigate compliance risks, streamlining the traditionally fragmented FX payments industry.

Advantage Futures Migrates to ION’s XTP Platform for Enhanced Trade Processing

ION, the trading and risk management solutions vendor, has successfully migrated Advantage Futures, a high-volume futures commission merchant, to its cleared derivatives trade processing platform, XTP. The transition marks a shift for Advantage Futures from its decades-old post-trade technology to a more advanced system, enabling extensive automation across clearing and settlement workflows. The XTP platform will aim to enhance the firm’s operational efficiency and provide clients with real-time visibility of positions, fees, margins, and risk.

Francesco Margini, Chief Product Officer for Cleared Derivatives, ION Markets, commented: “We are very pleased about our partnership with Advantage Futures, one of the industry’s highest volume clearing firms. The transition from their legacy back-office solution to XTP was completed in record time, leveraging ION’s established methodology and tools developed to manage large and complex migration projects. The Advantage-XTP rollout demonstrates ION’s proven track record in bringing new products to the market and the strong discipline required for a timely and successful delivery to customers.”

With over 5.3 billion contracts processed since its inception, Advantage Futures serves a broad client base, including professional traders, institutional clients, and hedge funds.

NeoXam Integrates SIX’s ULTUMUS Data and Index Feeds for ETFs

Clients of NeoXam’s DataHub will have access to data, indices and other services linked to ETFs and other passive funds via SIX’s ULTUMUS feed.

The London-based data management and investment technology provider said the integration of ULTUMUS will offer users a “single source of data on multi-asset ETFs alongside complete composition, reference, flow, corporate actions, and dividends data sets”.

NeoXam said the move is timed to capitalise on growing demand for ETFs in Europe, which saw first-quarter assets under management soar 10 per cent on the previous three months to a record US$1.8 trillion, according to Morningstar.

NeoXam managing director of EMEA North and ZAF, Philipp Sfeir, said the company had seen huge demand for a “consolidated view” of ETF and index data in recent months.

“Market developments in this data segment underscore the importance of utilising NeoXam DataHub as a consolidation and dissemination platform,” Sfeir said.

Among the services provided by ULTUMUS are global indices including those of MSCI, S&P Global and FTSE.