EU Approves Proposal to Regulate ESG Ratings Providers

European Union leaders have agreed on a proposal to regulate ESG ratings providers, requiring them to be registered and monitored by financial authorities.
Under the planned framework jointly backed by the EU’s executive, the European Council, and its parliament, ESG ratings providers must abide by transparency rules that will oblige them to publish the data and methodologies behind their calculations.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) will keep check of the companies.

The regulation is hoped to bring harmony to the fragmented ESG ratings sector, which has been frequently blamed for paving the way for greenwashing. The EU also expects that eventually there will be providers of separate E, S and G ratings.

When the proposal is passed, the EU is be the first major financial authority to bring ESG ratings firms within the orbit of regulators, a move that is also being considered in the UK and US.

LTX Secures Four Patents for Fixed Income Trading Innovations, Enhancing Bond Market Efficiency

Electronic trading platform LTX, a Broadridge subsidiary, has been awarded four new patents for its fixed income trading technology. The patents encompass bond similarity technology, dealer selection score technology, liquidity aggregation technology, and RFQ+ trading protocol, innovations designed to streamline pre-trade decision-making and optimise trade execution in the corporate bond market. Together, the patents enhance the processes for selecting bonds and counterparties, as well as for executing large-scale electronic trades, which may lead to improved pricing due to heightened participant involvement.

Established by Broadridge, LTX leverages AI-driven workflows throughout the corporate bond trading lifecycle, from analysis to trading. In June 2023, LTX launched the patent-pending BondGPT, followed by its enterprise version, BondGPT+, in November 2023. Both applications are designed to offer quick identification of corporate bonds and provide rapid responses to complex bond-related inquiries.

Digital Onboarding Sets Plans Following $58 million Volition Capital Investment

Boston-based Digital Onboarding, a SaaS solution provider helping more than 100 financial institutions deepen their customer relationships, has closed a $58 million investment from growth equity firm Volition Capital. Digital Onboarding provides a digital engagement platform built to grow and service existing customer relationships and designed to enable financial institutions to engage with customers via targeted, journey-based communication and action-oriented microsites.

The investment will support Digital Onboarding’s goals to accelerate its product roadmap, improve support for existing customers, drive awareness among target prospects, and expand its headcount.

Centralis Group Selects Fenergo Client Lifecycle Management

Fenergo, a provider of digital Client Lifecycle Management (CLM), Know your Customer (KYC) and transaction monitoring solutions for financial institutions, has been selected by Centralis Group, which will use Fenergo CLM to streamline client and investor onboarding processes and strengthen its foundation for sustainable international growth.

Luxembourg-based Centralis is an alternative asset and corporate services provider. Fenergo’s technology will enable the firm to increase operational efficiency, optimise the onboarding journey for both clients and investors, and reduce the potential for duplication of effort. By streamlining and accelerating onboarding, Centralis expects to foster stronger client relationships from the beginning while remaining compliant with diverse regulations across its global network.

Mosaic Smart Data Research Reveals Front Office Data Challenges

Mosaic Smart Data, a provider of real-time capital markets data analytics, has revealed the challenges front offices in investment banks face when attempting to get their data in a fit state to deploy AI-powered analytics for improved efficiency, productivity and profitability.

Mosaic research found data quality and integrity is a critical challenge with 66% of banks struggling with data quality and gaps in important data points; 83% with no real-time access to transaction data and/or data analytics; and 66% saying the data that is most useful for analytics is challenging to access. Reference data is unfit for purpose, with 50% of banks having reference data with no unified counterparty identifier, especially for client static data, and sometimes the data is missing altogether.

Matthew Hodgson, CEO and founder of Mosaic, comments: “No powerful analytics or AI can fully function if data is not normalised, maintained in an orderly fashion and gaps in the data enriched. Now is a crucial time to invest in data and analytics for the front office – but ROI must be guaranteed in the current economic climate, and this begins with better data health.”

The research covered six million Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC) transactions from global and regional investment banks in South America, US, Canada, UK, EU, South Africa, Japan and Australia, and surveyed front office staff including traders, salespeople and quants.

Themis Hosts Financial Crime Risk Management Cloud Service in Saudi Arabia

Themis, a financial crime technology company, has extended the reach of its financial crime risk management cloud service by hosting it in Saudi Arabia. The Themis service, situated in Jeddah, is purpose-built to meet the unique demands of the region and ensure it meets regulatory obligations around data sovereignty that require customer data to be held and processed within the region.

Further to availability in Saudi Arabia, Themis says its technology is built in such a way that data can be hosted anywhere in the world and adhere to local jurisdictional regulatory requirements. Additional services are due to be announced during the first quarter.

BMLL Launches Key Datasets on Snowflake Marketplace

BMLL, the Level 3 data and analytics provider, has made three new datasets available on the Snowflake Marketplace, marking the completion of the first phase of its programme aimed at enhancing dataset accessibility for customers. Building on their September 2023 partnership with Snowflake, BMLL now offers market participants Daily Classified Trades, Level 2 Quotes, and Millisecond CBBO datasets in addition to existing Level 3 data and analytics.

The collaboration between BMLL and Snowflake, with the latter also investing as a strategic Series B investor, aims to revolutionise the way market participants source and handle large datasets, by providing high-quality, easily accessible data without the need for extensive in-house resources.

CME Group and DTCC Launch Enhanced Cross-Margining for Clearing Members

CME Group, in collaboration with The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), has officially initiated their advanced cross-margining system. This development introduces capital efficiency improvements for clearing members involved in trading and settling both U.S. Treasury securities and CME Group Interest Rate futures.

The upgraded framework now permits eligible members from both CME Group and DTCC’s Government Securities Division to cross-margin a broader range of products, such as SOFR futures, Ultra 10-Year U.S. Treasury Note futures, and Ultra U.S. Treasury Bond futures, alongside FICC-cleared U.S. Treasury notes and bonds. Additionally, repo transactions backed by Treasury securities with over a year until maturity are also eligible for the enhanced arrangement.

S&P Global Market Intelligence Integrates Nikkei News Offering into S&P Capital IQ Pro Platform

S&P Global Market Intelligence has announced an enhancement to its S&P Capital IQ Pro platform through the integration of Nikkei’s comprehensive news service, a move stemming from their partnership initiated in 2022. The integration will provide users with insights into the Asia-Pacific financial markets, regulatory changes, corporate developments, and emerging trends.

The collaboration between S&P and Nikkei marries editorial with advanced data analytics, offering a one-stop solution for APAC market intelligence. Additionally, Nikkei News will soon become available via feed delivery, in a machine-readable format optimised for Natural Language Processing (NLP) applications. This content will feature metadata tagging, enhancing its usability and ensuring better compatibility with NLP tools.

R3 Unveils R3 Digital Markets to Facilitate Digital Asset Adoption with Kate Karimson at the Helm

DLT technology and services company R3 has introduced R3 Digital Markets, a solution suite aimed at empowering firms to leverage digital assets and currencies. The new offering, underpinned by R3’s tokenisation platform, Corda, is designed to enhance efficiency and reduce costs within financial markets seamlessly integrate Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) into fundamental business practices.

To lead the roll out of the new suite, R3 has appointed financial technology leader and capital markets expert Kate Karimson as Chief Commercial Officer. Karimson joins R3 with a proven track record, following leadership roles at CME Group, BrokerTec, ICAP and LedgerEdge.