Buy-Side Firms Seek FX and Listed Derivatives EMS Consolidation for Real-Time Risk View

Demand is growing among buy-side market participants to consolidate foreign exchange (FX) execution management systems (EMS) with listed derivatives workflows. According to a survey by Acuiti on behalf of Trading Technologies, conducted across 65 hedge funds, proprietary trading firms, and asset managers, achieving a unified, real-time view of risk is the primary motivation for integrating these platforms.

Historically, FX execution has operated on distinct infrastructure due to the fragmented nature of over-the-counter liquidity. Consequently, 69% of surveyed firms currently run separate management systems for FX and listed derivatives. However, rising operational complexity and cross-asset desk management are driving appetite for unified workflows. Participants prioritised non-cost advantages, with 69% targeting real-time risk visibility, 52% seeking enhanced execution quality, and 46% desiring expanded algorithmic capabilities.

Despite the clear benefits of combining position views and order routing, adoption is tempered by operational concerns. Migration risk remains the single largest barrier, cited by nearly half of respondents as the main reason for delaying system consolidation.

Exegy to Distribute EuroCTP’s Real-Time Shares and ETF Feed

Exegy will distribute EuroCTP’s real-time multicast FIX SBE feed, the EU’s first real-time pre- and post-trade Consolidated Tape for shares and ETFs, when it goes live on September 14th. Building on a technology partnership established in 2024, Exegy will serve as a redistribution partner for the feed. This includes the European Best Bid and Offer (EBBO), which is calculated using Exegy’s market data technology platform.

The EuroCTP feed will be accessible via Exegy Ticker Plant (XTP) appliances and the Axiom consolidated market data feed. Incorporating EuroCTP adds consolidated trading activity from approximately 130 European trading venues and reporting platforms to Exegy’s broader platform, which already provides access to real-time market data from over 300 global venues.

The real-time feed will be available on Axiom immediately upon launch, allowing firms to stream market access and receive normalised European market data without incurring additional operational overhead.

Cboe Clear Europe to Expand Securities Financing Transactions Clearing to Fixed Income

Cboe Clear Europe, the pan-European clearing house operated by Cboe Global Markets, plans to expand its Securities Financing Transactions (SFT) clearing service to include fixed income instruments beginning 24 August. The service will cover EU, Swiss, and UK government and corporate bonds for all market participants, as well as US Treasuries and US corporate bonds for non-US entities.

Settlement will be processed via Euroclear Bank for European and Swiss instruments, CREST for UK assets, the Federal Reserve for US Treasuries, and the Depository Trust Company for US corporate bonds. Transitioning SFTs from bilateral agreements to a centrally cleared model aims to improve balance sheet efficiency and streamline post-trade operations, including client onboarding, reporting, and settlement.

This initiative follows the 2025 launch of SFT clearing for European cash equities and ETFs across 19 depositories. Adopted by principal lenders, agent lenders, and borrowers, the existing service averages over 1,000 daily settlements, with daily notional outstanding loan values reaching €9 billion.

LemonEdge Lures $21m to Develop Fund Accounting Platform

LemonEdge, which has built a fund accounting platform for private markets, has completed a US$21 million series A funding round led by Blackstone Innovations Investments. BNY and Sidekick Partners also contributed, bringing total investment in the company to more than $30m.
The company appointed David O’Malley as chief executive and board chair alongside Katharine Briggs as chief growth officer.
“LemonEdge was built to simplify the complexity of the rapidly scaling private markets space, with global private market AUM forecast to reach $26.7tn by 2030,” O’Malley said.
The new capital will be used to accelerate product development and expand operations across Europe and the US. The company previously raised capital from investor Sidekick Partners.

Anthropic, Macquarie AM, GIC Collaborate on Data Centre Plan

Artificial intelligence model creator Anthropic has partnered with Macquarie Asset Management and GIC to form Theseus Infrastructure, a platform that will develop, operate and lease data centre infrastructure to Anthropic under long-term agreements.
The initiative focuses on identifying and developing sites in the US, with funds from Macquarie Asset Management and GIC providing the majority of the project equity. It comes as demand for Anthropic’s Claude model drives the need for additional compute capacity.
Anthropic will cover electricity price increases for local consumers in line with commitments it announced earlier this year.

Data Implementation Firm Adastra Recognised for Financial Services by Databricks

Data, artificial intelligence, and cloud implementation services provider Adastra has received Databricks Brickbuilder Specialisation status in financial services following an assessment of technical and sales expertise, live customer implementations, customer success stories, and published thought leadership.
The financial services designation covers solutions for banking, insurance and FinTech entities across fraud detection, risk management and regulatory reporting.
“For clients, this means turning scattered data trapped behind compliance rules and ageing systems into governed records that catch fraud and satisfy regulators in near real time, so they can protect the customers who rely on them,” Adastra said.
The company previously attained Premier Tier Services Partner status with Databricks while delivering predictive maintenance and inventory optimisation systems across industrial sectors.
Brickbuilder Specialisations are industry-specific designations awarded to partner organisations that demonstrate verifiable implementation experience on the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform. The status was also awarded to Adastra for transportation and energy, security and governance, as well as manufacturing.

Spotex and BitGo Partner to offer Regulated Custody and Prime Brokerage for Institutional Digital Asset Trading

Institutional trading venue Spotex has integrated with infrastructure provider BitGo to provide regulated custody to its digital asset customers via the latter’s GO Network. As a result, Spotex customers allocate assets held in regulated BitGo custody wallets for trading on Spotex while the underlying assets remain with BitGo throughout the trading lifecycle.

Spotex operates solely as the execution venue and does not act as principal to transactions executed through its ECN. This approach is designed to reduce the need to pre-fund the trading venue, improving capital efficiency, and minimising counterparty risk. BitGo’s applicable entities provide the customer’s custody, prime services, and settlement arrangements under the relevant agreements, including acting as a clearing and settlement broker and facilitating post-trade settlement.

For Spotex, the integration expands connectivity to BitGo’s institutional ecosystem and strengthens its offering to brokers, hedge funds, and asset managers seeking institutional-grade execution alongside regulated custody. And for BitGo, the integration adds another source of liquidity to its growing net

Joe Tuccio, who recently joined Spotex as Head of Digital Assets, says: “Having BitGo, one of the world’s largest specialist institutional custodians, as our first live digital asset custodian brings huge credibility to Spotex as we build out our digital asset offering and strengthen asset protection for our clients. By combining BitGo’s digital prime brokerage, custody and settlement capabilities with Spotex’s institutional liquidity and execution infrastructure, we believe we can provide clients with a more secure and capital-efficient way to trade digital assets.”

BSO Rolls Out Crypto Connect Plus for Latency-Sensitive Trading

Infrastructure and connectivity provider BSO has launched Crypto Connect Plus, which allows trading firms to spin up optimised cloud infrastructure in 10 minutes instead of requiring much longer lead times for manual provisioning.

Crypto Connect plus is aimed at market makers, HFT firms, crypto prop trading desks, digital assets platforms and liquidity providers. As well as the rapid self-service deployment, it features predictable ultra-low latency connectivity, a 99.95% SLA, dual AWS EC3 instances for resiliency and a real-time monitoring portal. Major exchanges connected include Binance, Kraken, OKX and Bybit.

Broadridge and Payward Add Shareholder Communications and Proxy Voting to xStocks

Broadridge Financial Solutions is adding shareholder communications and proxy voting to its unified governance platform to support eligible holders of xStocks, a leading tokenised equities framework developed by Payward Services.

“As tokenised securities continue to reshape global capital markets, investors should not have to choose between blockchain innovation and shareholder rights,” says Doug DeSchutter, President of Broadridge’s Investor Communication Solutions business. “By extending our governance platform to support xStocks, we are enabling eligible token holders to have a voice in corporate governance and extending our leadership in digital asset governance.”

Payward Services currently offers more than 500 tokenised assets across equities, ETFs and pre-IPO offerings, and with tokenised equities from several international markets slated to follow soon. 

Eligible holders will securely authenticate via ProxyVote.com using Web3 authentication, review proxy materials for the underlying securities, and submit their proxy voting preferences. The functionality brings established trusted governance capabilities that investors expect from traditional capital markets into on-chain ecosystems while preserving the accessibility and efficiency of tokenised assets.

Designed for interoperability across blockchains and platforms, xStocks move seamlessly between centralised exchanges, self-custodied wallets, and on-chain applications, unlocking new utility across trading, collateralisation, and decentralised finance (DeFi).

Bloomberg Vault Adds AI Models for Insider Dealing and Personal Trading Surveillance

Bloomberg has expanded Bloomberg Vault with two artificial intelligence models designed to identify electronic communications that may point to insider dealing or breaches of employee personal trading policies. The additions extend the platform’s surveillance coverage to two risk areas that can require compliance teams to examine communications alongside trading and account activity.

The Insider Dealing AI Policy looks for communications that may indicate the improper acquisition, disclosure or use of material non-public information (MNPI). The Personal Trading AI Policy targets communications concerning employees’ trading activity and investment accounts, including possible failures to comply with firms’ internal personal trading requirements.

The models join Bloomberg Vault’s existing suite of AI-powered surveillance policies, which covers market conduct, non-market conduct and conflicts of interest. Bloomberg said the expanded suite is intended to help compliance teams identify potential risks within electronic communications and concentrate their reviews on more relevant alerts.

Each model has been built for a defined risk scenario and is supported by documentation explaining its construction, risk focus and intended behaviour. According to Bloomberg, large language models are applied following model inference to improve the relevance of alerts and reduce false positives.

The documentation is also intended to help firms assess how the models operate within their AI governance frameworks. This is particularly relevant where compliance teams must explain the basis for surveillance alerts and evaluate externally supplied AI systems before deploying them in regulated workflows.

“Bloomberg’s AI-powered surveillance models have substantially improved alert quality and reduced false positives,” said Jotham Banyikidde, Investment Compliance Senior Associate at Impax Asset Management. “This allows our team to focus on meaningful review and oversight. Just as importantly, the models are transparent and well documented, which supports our internal AI impact assessment and gives us confidence in how alerts are generated.”

The release follows Bloomberg’s introduction of BSpeech, its AI-powered, multilingual voice transcription service. Bloomberg said the combination extends Vault’s AI capabilities across electronic and voice communications, allowing firms to manage surveillance and communications governance across multiple channels through a single workflow.