agora and Montis Partner to Develop End-to-End Platform for Digital Securities

agora Digital Capital Markets and Montis Group have announced a strategic partnership to develop an end-to-end platform for conventional and digital securities in regulated fixed income markets. The agoraPlatform will interoperate with Montis’s distributed ledger technology-based Central Security Depository (CSD), with authorisation and operational Go-Live targeted for Q4, 2023.

The collaboration aims to streamline interactions from originating, issuing, recording, holding, through to settling conventional, non-native, and natively digital securities tokens. By integrating agora’s pre-trade workflow tool with Montis’s post-trade digital infrastructure, the partnership marks a significant step towards creating a comprehensive environment for both conventional and digital securities.

Exegy Adds Deribit to Metro Trading Platform, Expands Crypto Options Trading Capabilities

Exegy, the front-office trading solutions provider, has added Deribit, the world’s largest cryptocurrency options exchange, to its list of covered crypto derivatives markets for its Metro professional trading platform. This integration will enable crypto traders on Deribit to leverage Metro’s pricing, execution, and risk management capabilities. The inclusion of Deribit follows demand from current and potential Metro users and aligns with Exegy’s broader ambition of introducing professional options trading functions to crypto options markets.

The Metro platform now has trading capacities for three crypto derivative-listing exchanges, Deribit, CME, and Ledger X. It equips professional traders with tools for dynamic volatility surface modelling, execution, and robust risk analysis.

Beeks and IPC Systems Deploy Advanced Private Cloud Solution for Johannesburg Stock Exchange

Beeks Group, providers of managed cloud computing, and electronic trading solutions vendor IPC Systems, have announced the implementation of a managed infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) solution for the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). The collaboration will provide a private and hybrid computing infrastructure offering, accessible globally at prime colocation facilities. This end-to-end solution combines market data and trade lifecycle services with a robust trading infrastructure in key global markets, enabling client deployments within JSE’s own data centres.

The new service empowers JSE, Africa’s largest stock exchange, to directly address clients’ challenges around monitoring, hosting, maintenance, and time to market. Leveraging the advantages of a managed service provider and the infrastructure-as-a-service model, JSE is now positioned to offer enhanced capabilities and further options to its client base.

TNS Enhances European Backbone to Support Increased Market Data Volumes

Transaction Network Services (TNS) has upgraded its European backbone, increasing capacity to manage growing market data volumes from numerous exchanges throughout Europe. The network has been reengineered to ensure maximum uptime, resilience, data delivery, and to offer the lowest commercially available latency between significant European financial centres, such as London, Frankfurt, and Bergamo. Both primary and secondary network paths have been enhanced to maintain complete end-to-end diversity of A and B market data feeds.

Over the last five years, TNS has established an ultra-low latency trading network throughout Europe, designed for buy-side and sell-side firms, prop shops and vendors. The network connects to 60 global exchanges and is monitored around the clock by TNS’ global network operations centres.

JPMorgan Launches Platform to Make ESG Data Easier to Use

JPMorgan Securities Service has unveiled a sustainability data interrogation and integration tool for clients. The Sustainable Investment Data Solution, available through the bank’s cloud-based Fusion platform, is designed to make it easier for clients to use ESG data, which is provided by multiple vendors, including Bloomberg and Sustainalytics.

LTX Introduces BondGPT, an AI-Driven Application Streamlining Corporate Bond Selection

LTX, a subsidiary of Broadridge Financial Solutions, has launched BondGPT, an application driven by OpenAI GPT-4. The AI-powered tool will respond to bond-related queries and assist users in identifying corporate bonds on the LTX platform, integrating real-time liquidity information from the LTX Liquidity Cloud. This advancement aims to streamline workflows and enhance efficiency for asset managers, hedge funds and dealers involved in bond selection and portfolio construction.

The BondGPT application offers a large language model (LLM) chat feature, allowing users to ask questions and locate corporate bonds based on their criteria. It utilises LTX’s Liquidity Cloud and bond similarity technology to identify bonds with similar characteristics, fulfilling traders’ real-time liquidity requirements.

ESG Risk Tool to be Reviewed by ISS ESG

ISS ESG is to adjust the methodology and data underlying its Environmental & Social Disclosure QualityScore product. The environmental and social risk assessment tool will undergo changes by the third quarter in response to changed disclosure standards. The Maryland-based sustainable investment arm of Institutional Shareholder Services said more than 150 factors underlying the score would be reviewed, with 60 new additions and 50 retired.

Bloomberg Offers Full Funds Data Suite, Including ESG

Bloomberg has included ESG information in a major new product that provides transparency into almost 150,000 funds and exchange traded products. The Funds Data Solution also offers foundational, holdings, corporate actions, risk and regulatory data.

Linedata Publishes 2023 Global Asset Management Survey

Linedata has published the results of its 2023 Global Asset Management Survey, revealing a focus on operational efficiency, digital transformation, and client experience. The survey is designed to provide insights into the priorities and challenges asset management firms are facing and includes responses from 265 industry leaders across the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.

The report notes factors that are shaping asset management, including continuing digital transformation led by automation, data integration pain points exemplified by ESG, outsourcing, AI adoption, and the journey to cloud. In support of these factors, it identifies key trends across the asset management community including the need to increase operational efficiency – which is top of the strategic agenda, technology spending priorities on risk management, including compliance, and portfolio and operational risk; intensifying demand for ESG data; and acceleration towards adopting flexible operating models.

C. Hoare & Co. Deploys Integral to Enhance FX Services

C. Hoare & Co., the UK’s oldest privately-owned bank, has deployed cloud-based SaaS FX technology from Integral, the currency technology provider, to offer competitive FX rates and market liquidity access to its business and personal account customers.

By providing the bank with liquidity aggregation, an FX pricing engine and API distribution to customers, Integral is helping C. Hoare & Co. to improve service to its current customers and reach new market segments, while avoiding the significant costs associated with building its own infrastructure.