TradingTech Insight Brief
FlexTrade Integrates ACA’s Surveillance Technology with FlexNOW EMS
FlexTrade has partnered ACA Technology Solutions to help mutual clients manage trade surveillance and compliance using ACA’s Decryptex surveillance technology across the company’s FlexNOW cloud-based execution management system (EMS). Shoshana Wainer, head of compliance at Albar Capital and a user of the combined solution, says: “FlexNOW and Decryptex are stand-out products supported by highly-responsive and knowledgeable teams. Integrating Decryptex with FlexNOW allows us to review our trading from a compliance perspective quickly, reliably and with the granularity we need.”
Bloomberg Acquires RegTek.Solutions
Bloomberg has acquired RegTek.Solutions, a specialist in global regulatory reporting software solutions. The firm, which provides modular software solutions built around actionable regulatory intelligence, will be integrated with Bloomberg’s Regulatory Reporting Hub (RHUB), as well as Bloomberg’s enterprise data management and trading systems. The acquisition will combine Bloomberg’s data enrichment and reporting capabilities with RegTek.Solutions’ quality and control tools across a broad range of global reporting jurisdictions. Clients will have access to a fully electronic reporting workflow including transaction reporting eligibility, data validation, enrichment and reconciliation. Further news to follow.
SmartStream RDU Readies Services for Brexit
The SmartStream Reference Data Utility (RDU) has implemented changes to its MiFID II Reference Data Service and Systematic Internaliser (SI) Registry to accommodate Brexit. For the MiFID II service, SmartStream RDU will make both ESMA and FCA data available, either as an integrated delivery or separately. It will also support ESMA and FCA pre- and post-trade reporting through its cloud-based REST API service. The SI registry has been proactively enhanced to indicate whether an individual SI status is relevant to ESMA reporting, FCA reporting or both.
Rival Systems Adds Real-time Margin to Enterprise Risk Management Solution
Rival Systems, a provider of trading and risk management software, has added real-time margin to its enterprise risk management solution. The functionality will allow clients to proactively monitor margin for futures and options positions, as well as net liquidation value across all of their accounts. Rival’s enterprise risk management solution calculates open margin based on the start-of-day positions and current margin as positions and exchange margin values change throughout the day. The initial release is fully integrated with CME’s margin services. Support for additional exchanges to be added throughout the year.
SmartStream Partners Finanz Informatik Solutions Plus to Meet Client Needs in Germany
SmartStream Technologies has partnered German IT service provider Finanz Informatik Solutions Plus to help German clients with implementation projects and application management of SmartStream’s Corona reconciliation solutions, as well as its next generation Aurora transaction lifecycle management offerings. Under the agreement, Finanz Informatik and SmartStream will help large customers in the region digitalise their back office. The partnership will support reconciliation processes for financial institutions with trade activities, fees and invoice control, and cash and intra-day liquidity management needs in the German market.
ICE Agrees to Acquire Merrill Lynch Option Volatility Estimate Indices
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has agreed to acquire fixed income volatility indices, including the Merrill Lynch Option Volatility Estimate (MOVE) family of indices, from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The MOVE Index is a well-recognised measure of US interest rate volatility and can provide a signal for changing risk sentiment in fixed income markets. ICE will also acquire variations of MOVE that track different option expiries, as well as other indices that measure volatility in the US interest rate swap market. The indices will become part of ICE Data Indices, which leverages ICE Data Services’ pricing, reference data and analytics solutions.
Charles River Expands Collaboration with MarketAxess
Charles River Development, a State Street Company, has expanded its collaboration with MarketAxess, a provider of e-trading for global fixed income. Under the expansion, Charles River clients will be offered access to MarketAxess’s Auto-X trading functionality for investment-grade credit, high-yield, emerging market debt and Eurobonds. This will allow traders and portfolio managers to source liquidity directly from the Charles River OEMS for fixed income securities in more than 25 currencies across Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia-Pacific. It will also support auto-execute orders, deliver trade allocations to dealer counterparties and receive allocation acknowledgements in an STP workflow.
CLS Adds China CITIC Bank International to Settlement Service
CLS, a market infrastructure group delivering settlement, processing and data solutions, has named China CITIC Bank International (CNCBI) as the first Chinese bank to access CLSSettlement as a third-party client. Bai Lijun, executive director, alternate CEO and treasurer, CNCBI, comments: “By becoming a participant in CLSSettlement, CNCBI aims to mitigate settlement risk, reduce operational costs related to FX trading, and create opportunities for business expansion by enabling CNCBI to do more business with a larger number of counterparties.” CLS says expanding third-party participation in CLSSettlement is part of its growth strategy in Asia Pacific.
R3 Expands Blockchain Software Engineering Team
R3, provider of Corda blockchain software and a player in capital markets, plans to double the size of its London Wall hub to accommodate its growing engineering team. The extra space will also support a hiring plan to increase the company’s global headcount from 215 to nearly 300 by the end of the year. Of this, over half of the new hires will be in the London office, with more than 40 new recruits being made in the capital. The firm’s roster of new hires will consist largely of software engineers.
NIBC Bank Migrates to Torstone Post-trade Platform
Netherlands-based NIBC Bank has completed migration to Torstone Technology’s Inferno post-trade processing platform. Inferno was selected to replace NIBC’s legacy systems as the bank rationalises its operations to drive efficiencies across the wider business. Consolidating processes on Torstone’s SaaS platform will also enable NIBC to benefit from Torstone’s service model, resulting in reduced total cost of ownership. The implementation project began in January 2019, with the bank’s equities and fixed income processes migrating to Torstone’s platform in six months.