GLEIF Signals Intent to Join Global Project Designed to Digitise ESG Credentials of MSMEs

The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) have signed a statement of intent to embark on a collaborative initiative to develop digital Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) credentials for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) worldwide.

The initiative, Project Savannah, hopes to lower the barriers to ESG reporting for MSMEs by establishing a common framework of ESG metrics to generate basic sustainability credentials and commence the journey towards meeting UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It will use digital initiatives, such as MAS’s Project Greenprint1, to generate ESG data credentials that can be housed in MSMEs’ LEI records. MSMEs will then be able to transmit verified entity information and key ESG data to their business partners.

Arcesium and Confluence Partner to Provide Efficiencies for the Buy-Side

Arcesium, a provider of enterprise data management solutions, and Confluence, a solutions provider for the investment management industry, have partnered to deliver an integrated data management and analytics solution for middle/back-office operations of asset managers.

The partnership is intended to deliver workflow efficiency across performance, risk and regulatory reporting, and will integrate Confluence’s StatPro Analytics solution, comprising performance, attribution, risk, GIPS, and other investment analytics, with Arcesium’s Financial Data Stack modules and cloud-native data management platform, Aquata.

The offering is available as a technology solution or a fully managed service, allowing asset managers to consolidate vendors and lower total cost of ownership.

Sphera Launches Cloud-Based AI Climate Risk Tool

Investor clients of ESG risk management software provider Sphera can access the company’s new SpheraCloud Corporate Sustainability-Portfolio Management service. The product offers financed emissions and portfolio emissions data, using AI.

Finastra Unveils Bank Climate Sandbox with Green RWA

FinTech Finastra has partnered with Green RWA to create a tool that enables banks manage climate risks, including those facing their assets. The Climate-Extended Risk Model (CERM) Sandbox calculates physical and transition risks to its portfolio and loan book as well as its own operations.

ICO Recommends Privacy Enhancing Technologies

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is recommending organisations start using privacy enhancing technologies (PETs) to share personal information safely, securely and anonymously. These types of technologies open unprecedented opportunities for organisations to harness the power of personal data through innovative and trustworthy applications, by allowing them to share, link and analyse people’s personal information without having access to it.

The ICO has launched new PETs guidance, which is aimed at data protection officers and others who are using large personal data sets in finance, healthcare, research, and central and local government.

BT Partners with Flexenet to Enhance Cloud-Based Trading Communications

BT and Flexenet have announced a partnership to offer Flexenet Private Wires connectivity, fully integrated with BT’s Trading unified communications and collaboration (UCC) platform. The partnership aims to facilitate secure, compliant, high-performance real-time trading for customers worldwide. The BT Trading platform, engineered for global capital markets, can be integrated with unified communications systems from Microsoft and Cisco and can be accessed remotely by traders.

Flexenet Private Wires provides secure voice communication links for traders on the trading floors of investment banks, brokers, and hedge funds across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. This direct integration with BT Trading creates a comprehensive unified communications solution that can be managed seamlessly as a single package, irrespective of customers’ existing voice technology.

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.