SEC Approves Cost-Saving Measures for the Consolidated Audit Trail

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved an amendment to the National Market System Plan to implement various cost-saving measures for the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT). This decision includes exemptive relief from specific requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, aiming to reduce the financial burden of the CAT while maintaining its core regulatory functions. The amendment builds upon previous efforts from 2025 to streamline the system’s budget and operational efficiency.

Key changes under the new amendment include the deletion of CAT data older than three years, the relaxation of certain data processing deadlines, and the implementation of a spending cap for future modifications. Furthermore, the plan participants will cease creating interim lifecycle linkages unless requested and will stop reporting rejected messages. These technical adjustments are designed to simplify the infrastructure and reduce the volume of data managed by the system.

The SEC estimates that these measures will result in annual cost savings of between $50 million and $70 million compared to the 2025 CAT budget. When measured against the savings from the 2025 exemptive relief, the new amendment is expected to provide an additional $19.4 million to $24.1 million in incremental reductions. SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins noted that while this represents significant progress, a comprehensive review of the CAT’s long-term sustainability remains ongoing.

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.

Standard Chartered and LSEG Partner for Enterprise Data and Analytics Consolidation

LSEG has entered into a multi-year agreement with Standard Chartered to provide the bank with enterprise-scale access to multi-asset class data, news, and analytics. The collaboration focuses on delivering a unified data environment with consistent rights management across the organisation’s global footprint.

The agreement is designed to enhance Standard Chartered’s operating model by consolidating market data access into a single framework. By improving data lineage and cataloguing, the bank aims to streamline its governance and entitlement processes. This integrated approach ensures that data usage remains compliant with evolving regulatory requirements while strengthening internal auditability and control.

By implementing these front-to-back workflows, the bank can better support its markets, risk, finance, and wealth divisions. The partnership facilitates more efficient data delivery, enabling the bank to provide faster, data-driven client experiences. This strategic move leverages the global reach of both franchises to improve operational speed and consistency across the bank’s international network.

TNS Enhances Data Usage Optimizer With New Interactive Customer Portal

Transaction Network Services (TNS) has launched an interactive customer portal for its Data Usage Optimizer (DUO) platform, providing buy-side and sell-side firms with on-demand tools to manage market data expenses. This update follows the initial 2024 launch of DUO and aims to simplify the process of identifying unused subscriptions. By converting complex vendor entitlement files into an actionable dashboard, the portal allows financial institutions to pinpoint and eliminate unnecessary costs more efficiently.

The new interface offers a centralised, global view of data expenditure across multiple office locations. Key features include independent file uploading for immediate reporting, advanced filtering by user or feed, and customisable cost modelling that accounts for specific contract pricing and regional fee variations. These tools are designed to turn raw data into an actionable list for immediate cost reduction, moving away from manual, time-consuming analysis.

In one instance, TNS identified monthly savings of $60,000 for a global bank by highlighting redundant data feeds.

Deutsche Börse Group to Acquire Remaining 20% Stake in ISS STOXX

Deutsche Börse Group has reached an agreement to acquire the remaining 20% minority stake in ISS STOXX from the global investor General Atlantic. This transaction marks the final step in a strategic partnership that began with the acquisition of Axioma in 2019 and the subsequent integration of ISS’s ESG solutions with the STOXX index business in 2023. By moving to full ownership, Deutsche Börse aims to simplify its growth strategy and enhance market connectivity for its data, analytics, and index offerings.

The total purchase price of approximately €1.1 billion is based on a pre-agreed valuation of roughly 20 times the adjusted EBITDA of ISS STOXX. The payment will be structured in two tranches, with €731 million due in February 2026 and the balance payable in March 2026. Deutsche Börse intends to fund the buyout using existing cash and debt financing. Despite the significant investment, the group expects to maintain its AA- long-term credit rating and anticipates a low single-digit increase in cash earnings per share during the first year of full ownership.

General Atlantic’s exit is expected to be finalised by the end of March 2026, fulfilling a dual-track agreement that allowed for a private sale in the absence of an IPO. To maintain market integrity, Deutsche Börse has confirmed that ISS’s research and advisory services will continue to function under existing non-interference policies. This acquisition reinforces the Group’s focus on providing mission-critical tools for the buy-side while ensuring operational agility across its premier data brands.

SOLVE Launches AI-Powered Confidence Score for Corporate Bond Pricing

SOLVE, the provider of fixed income market data, has introduced Confidence Score for Corporate Bonds to its SOLVE Px™ platform. This AI-driven metric quantifies pricing uncertainty on a scale of 1 to 10, providing a transparent layer to predictive pricing for over 250,000 investment-grade and high-yield corporate bonds. The tool translates complex model uncertainty into an intuitive framework, allowing professionals to assess the reliability of predicted prices for Bid, Mid, and Offer valuations.

The metric categorises scores into low, medium, and high confidence levels, which are colour-coded within the SOLVE Quotes Web application for rapid assessment. Higher scores typically reflect bonds with recent trading activity and active quoting, while lower scores indicate less liquid securities. Crucially, the tool covers the entire corporate bond universe, including highly illiquid assets and trades of all sizes, enabling risk management and trading teams to make more defensible, data-backed decisions.

Confidence Score is now integrated across all SOLVE Px delivery methods, including API endpoints, Excel add-ins, and FIX feeds. This launch follows the previous rollout of similar tools for municipal bonds and marks a further step in the company’s expansion of predictive pricing capabilities. By pairing price predictions with measurable uncertainty indicators, the service aims to reduce ambiguity and improve workflow efficiency across the fixed income markets.

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.

WAMID Launches Advanced Market Analytics Suite in Collaboration with BMLL

WAMID, the technology subsidiary of Saudi Tadawul Group, has launched WAMID Analytics, a new suite of solutions developed in collaboration with data provider BMLL. Designed to assist both local and international market participants, the platform aims to improve transparency, insight, and efficiency across Saudi and global capital markets.

The core of this new offering is the Analytics Dashboard, a cloud-based, no-code platform that provides visualisations of advanced metrics derived from global equity order book data. This tool allows users to analyse market behaviour, liquidity, and execution quality in granular detail. The dashboard features capabilities for comparing trends and benchmarking performance across various time horizons, supporting functions ranging from institutional research to the optimisation of trading strategies.

This launch marks a further step in WAMID’s strategy to drive digital transformation within Saudi Arabia’s financial sector. WAMID Analytics joins the company’s existing portfolio of services, which includes WAMID DataHub, WAMID Newswire, and Co-Location services, expanding its capacity to deliver market intelligence and enhance global connectivity.

B2PRIME Secures Platinum Partnership and Integrates B2TRADER with TradingView

B2PRIME has announced a strategic partnership with the charting and social trading platform TradingView. As part of this collaboration, B2PRIME has been recognised as a Platinum Partner and has completed the integration of its core trading platform, B2TRADER, with the TradingView interface. This development enables clients to place trades directly from TradingView charts, seamlessly bridging the gap between technical analysis and trade execution while leveraging B2PRIME’s liquidity and infrastructure.

The integration provides B2PRIME users with access to TradingView’s extensive suite of analysis tools. Clients can also utilise custom indicators via Pine Script and access a social trading environment that includes expert analysis and economic calendars. By enabling direct execution through this cloud-based platform, the partnership aims to streamline workflows for professional traders across both desktop and mobile devices.

DataCT to Serve as Independent Administrator for New US Consolidated Tape Plan

DataCT, an affiliate of DataBP, has been selected by the Operating Committee of the Consolidated Tape Plan (CT Plan) to serve as its Independent Administrator. Pending final negotiations, the new CT Plan is expected to launch in early 2027 as the unified successor to the three existing US equity market data plans for Tape A, B, and C securities. To comply with SEC independence requirements, DataCT was established as a separate entity with its own governance and management structures, operating under the oversight of the CT Plan Operating Committee.

Mark Schaedel, CEO of DataBP, will serve as Acting CEO of DataCT during the transition period to ensure operational readiness before handing over to a permanent Chief Administrative Officer. DataCT has engaged Deloitte to assist with the transition programme and provide ongoing shared services, although Deloitte will have no role in governance. Responsibilities for the new administrator include subscriber onboarding, licensing, billing, compliance oversight, and coordination with Securities Information Processors (SIPs), replacing the current CTA/CQ and UTP Plan Administrators.