SEB Acquires Stake in Swedish Property Data Firm Metry

SEB Greentech Venture Capital has bought a stake in Swedish sustainability data firm Metry to capitalise on rising demand from banks for ESG-related performance indicators on real estate. Metry gathers data from the built environment to help owners and investors make property more efficient and to help them report on their assets’ green credentials.

Survey Finds Three-Quarters of Leaders Lack Confidence in Data

Almost three-quarters of senior decision makers have no confidence in data being reported to stakeholders, according to a global survey of executives by Workiva. The study also found that organisations are dividing their sustainability budgets 43 per cent to environment, 29 per cent to social and 28 per cent to governance.

Northern Trust Enhances Investment Analysis Module to Support Complex Investments

Northern Trust has enhanced the Investment Analysis module of its Front Office Solutions platform to optimise decision-making for institutional investors who manage sophisticated portfolios, including alternative investments. The Investment Analysis tool allows allocators to conduct data analysis across current, prospective and historical investments, giving them the ability to monitor and assess complex investments through interactive charts and templates. Key features include the ability to conduct correlation analyses with interactive heat-maps and run returns analyses with drawdown charts.

NYU’s Quant Research Unit Partners with BMLL for Market Microstructure Research

Data and analytics provider BMLL is to collaborate with New York University’s Mathematics in Finance program, making its Data Lab available to NYU’s team of quantitative researchers. Under the program, BMLL Data Lab will run computations and conduct market microstructure research on the futures market. Users will be able to access over three years of Level-3 harmonised futures data, process it at scale, and find inferences by drilling down into every single message.

The program is directed by 2021 “Quant of the Year” Professor Petter Kolm, a leading quantitative analyst specialising in market microstructure modelling and buy-side trading.

Buy-Side Firms Increase Investment in ESG Data Management

Buy-side firms are expected to increase investment in ESG data management over the next two years as they prioritise data availability, comparability, usability and workflow integration. For those that decide to outsource ESG data management capabilities, favoured models will be based on Data-as-a-Service.

Taking a snapshot of buy-side firms’ ESG data management plans, research commissioned by cloud-based market data management services company Alveo, shows 90% of executives polled across buy-side firms in the UK, US and Asia expect investment in ESG data management to increase over the next two years, with 57% anticipating an over 25% increase in that timeframe.

Key capabilities include AI and machine learning (ML), with 98% of firms using these technologies for analytics in their approach to ESG data management today, although only 35% are making extensive use of these capabilities.

Bloomberg Expands Crypto Data Coverage to Top 50 Crypto Assets

Bloomberg has expanded its coverage of cryptocurrency data on the Bloomberg Terminal to include the top 50 crypto assets, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Coin, XRP, Solana and others. Clients can now monitor intraday pricing for an expanded set of cryptocurrencies, indices and futures contracts in real-time.

Bloomberg started providing Bitcoin prices on the Bloomberg Terminal in 2013, expanding the scope of available instruments to 10 in 2018, and now to the top 50.

Pico Updates Corvil Analytics Platform for High Performance Network Analytics

Pico, the technology, software, data and analytic services provider, has released version 9.7 of its Corvil Analytics platform, which delivers new features to monitor, optimize and diagnose network health in complex 100Gbps trading and enterprise environments. This follows the launch last October of Pico’s flagship Corvil 10000 appliance, which achieves sustained 100Gbps real-time processing.

Corvil Analytics 9.7 offers a range of new features, as well as providing the base architecture for building new AI and machine learning technologies, with anomaly detection for network traffic patterns typical in financial institutions.

IPC and Newsquawk Partner to Launch Connexus Broadcast, for Real-Time Audio Market Data

IPC, the communications and multi-cloud connectivity solutions provider, and Newsquawk, the multi-asset audio market data service, have partnered to launch Connexus® Broadcast, which monitors and reports data and news from hundreds of mainstream and social media sources, and provides audio market data feeds as a real-time stream through IPC’s Connexus Cloud.

The new Connexus Broadcast service is designed to support traders, asset managers, brokers, and risk and compliance teams.

Taskize Network Reaches Milestone of 500 Financial Institutions

Taskize, the provider of inter-company workflow to the financial services industry, has achieved a significant milestone with 500 financial institutions now live on the company’s network, almost double the 289 companies in January 2021.

The global, web-based platform allows firms to more efficiently manage operational issues across counterparties as well as internally within their organisation. The recent growth of the network is attributed to the wave of new regulations and industry initiatives, such as T+1 settlement, which have created an increased need for faster and more efficient resolution of settlement breaks and margin disputes.

APG Chooses FlexTrade for Multi-Asset Execution Management

Multi-asset execution and order management systems vendor FlexTrade has been selected by APG Asset Management, to consolidate and streamline its multi-asset execution management capabilities. APG identified the need to overhaul its execution management operations as part of a broader front office transformation initiative, and following a successful proof of concept, selected FlexTRADER EMS as the optimal solution to handle the trading of equities, fixed income and foreign exchange from a single platform.

APG will leverage FlexTRADER EMS to create customisable workflows and provide its trading teams in the Netherlands, Hong Kong, and the US with a consistent set of data, tools, and interface to improve trading efficiency.