Baader Bank Takes Bloomberg ESG Data Feed for SFDR Reporting

Germany’s Baader Bank has added Bloomberg’s ESG data to its feeds as it builds out its Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) reporting capabilities in Europe.

The bank, which also provides outsourced management for many investment firms’ funds, adds the feed to its array of Bloomberg products, which include the Terminal and B-PIPE.

Bloomberg’s SFDR data, which is accessible via its ESGD function, provides information on more than 16,000 companies and enables the mapping of reported ESG data to PAI indicators.

Spanish Insurer MAPFRE Links into Aladdin for Asset Management

Insurer MAPFRE’s asset management business has become the first Spanish company of its kind to sign into BlackRock’s Alladin investment management platform.

MAPFRE AM will oversee the management of its US$60 billion portfolio of public and private assets on the platform.

“The adoption of Aladdin will help us unify all of our apps and to streamline our investment process, which will in turn accelerate the growth of our company,” said MAPRE AM chief executive Álvaro Anguita. “MAPFRE is active in 25 countries and financial centres in the major markets around the world. In recent years, we’ve boosted our presence in Latin America and strengthened our business in other countries, such as France.”

Temenos Harnesses NVIDIA Platform for New GenAI Product

Banking software developer Temenos has created a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) product to help users of its technology to better manage and utilise unstructured data stored in their systems.

The on-premises product has been built with the NVIDIA accelerated computing platform. Temenos’ proprietary model will sit on the NVIDIA platform, offering users “exceptional speed and precision in delivering AI-driven services”, the company said.

“With the high-performance NVIDIA AI platform, Temenos is helping banks future-proof their operations and elevate the customer experience,” Temenos said.

Marshall Wace Gives Bloomberg a Private Market Boost

Alternatives asset manager Marshall Wace has integrated Bloomberg’s IBVAL Front Office as its default pricing engine, underlining the New York-based data behemoth’s eagerness to play a key role in private as well as public markets.

Artificial intelligence-supported IBVAL Front Office updates prices on dollar, euro and sterling credit markets every 15 seconds. It is available through the Bloomberg Terminal and through the company’s B-PIPE real-time market feed.

The announcement by London-based Marshall Wace, which oversees US$69 billion in assets, is a boost to Bloomberg’s efforts to become a leading player in the private market data space. In recent months it has signalled its eagerness to adapt and repackage tools it has developed for public and OTC markets so that they can be used by private equity and credit investors.

Recently it launched a US Leveraged Loan Index, which covers 1,300 leveraged loans with a market value of US$1.3 trillion.

BondWave Expands Functionality in its Effi Fixed-Income Platform

BondWave, a fixed income-focussed FinTech provider, has updated its Effi data insights platform to add new functionality for US Treasury data, trade analysis reports and other processes.

The enhancements been made to Effi’s Portfolio Analytics and Transaction Analytics tools also enable users to more quickly access a larger pool of account statistics and analyses.

“By expanding our analytics offerings in this latest Effi release, our users will have unique insights at their fingertips to help them make more informed investment decisions and meet their critical regulatory requirements,” said BondWave chief executive Michael Ruvo.

Private Lending Tech and Data Firm Cardo AI Raises $15m

Private credit and asset-based financing (ABF) technology specialist Cardo AI has raised US$15 million in a Series A funding round led by Blackstone Innovations Investments, FINTOP Capital and JAM FINTOP.

The investment will help Milan-based Cardo AI expand its artificial intelligence-supported data and technology offering to markets in the US.

The company said it is dedicated to bringing order to the fragmented and “outdated manual” data and technology processes within the US$40 trillion private lending space.

“Our expansion into the US market, supported by such prestigious institutions, highlights Cardo AI’s ability to deliver powerful technology for the alternative credit industry,” said founder and chief executive Altin Kadareja.

BondWave Acquires Bitvore’s Fixed-Income Analytics Unit

Fixed income-focussed FinTech BondWave has completed its acquisition of Bitvore’s data analytics business, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to scour unstructured data sources for bond market clients.

The technology will be incorporated into BondWave’s Effi fixed income data and analytics platform to “provide users with enhanced transparency and further support our mission and vision as a firm”, said chief executive Michael Ruvo.

With the acquisition, BondWave –which was formed in 2001 – will enable clients to extract data from publicly available sources and crunch it into a useable format for analysis. The company’s other capabilities include portfolio analytics and reporting and proposal generation, as well as tools that support best execution, fair pricing, and mark-up monitoring and disclosure on both a pre- and post-trade basis.

Arcesium Adds Regulatory Reporting Automation to Opterra Platform

Data management service provider Arcesium has launched a regulatory reporting extension to its Opterra data lifecycle management platform.

The New York-based company said the new tooling enables clients to utilise data they already have to automate the collection and presentation of information required for compliance processes.

The extension was created to meet growing demand for ever-more granular data from regulators. Arcesium said clients will now be able to automate disclosure processes using their data on trades, positions, P&Ls and accounts, saving time and resources.

“COOs and compliance leaders are expressing an urgent need to modernise their reporting processes, save time and reduce costs,” said Neil Visnapuu, product owner for regulatory reporting at Arcesium. “This solution empowers them to do precisely that. By auto-populating reports and completing disclosures… managers can release significant resources currently tied up in gathering data from fragmented sources. This streamlined way of working also empowers them to quickly adapt to any future regulatory demands”.

Seneca ESG Joins Private Equity Sustainability Reporting Initiative

Data management and software provider Seneca ESG has become the latest vendor to join the ESG Data Convergence Initiative (EDCI), which provides a common sustainability reporting framework for private equity.

Seneca said that through its membership, the company will help clients feed data pertinent to EDCI’s core set of standardised metrics via a dedicated API. That data can be accessed by limited partners to help guide their decision-making processes.

“By joining EDCI, Seneca ESG strengthens its commitment to advancing responsible investing and transparent ESG reporting in private equity markets,” said Seneca ESG chief executive Jonathan Ha. “Unified ESG metrics allow all stakeholders to gain clearer insights and measure progress in ways that were previously challenging.”

The EDCI was created by a group of global investors and Boston Consulting Group.

BlueFlame AI Builds GenAI-Supported Workflow Automator

BlueFlame AI has built a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI)-supported workflow automation tools to streamline their private markets data processes.
The New York-based startup’s Blueprints also uses large language models to query and process data from internal and external source, helping firms to boost productivity and make better informed decisions, BlueFlame AI said.

“By eliminating the technical barriers traditionally associated with AI implementation, we’re democratising access to sophisticated automation tools that can dramatically improve how investment firms operate and make decisions,” said chief executive and co-founder Raj Bakhru.

“For example, our clients can run a Blueprint to create IC memos, analyse earnings reports, or prepare them for an upcoming prospect meeting, reducing hours of manual work to minutes.”

BlueFlame was launched two years ago and its Nexus platform is designed to help firms mine and make sense of information stored in unstructured sources.

The company said that Blueprints can improve the accuracy of private markets research and analysis and that clients can interact with it through simple natural language prompts.