TradingTech Insight Brief
Fulbright Securities Deploys Horizon’s Options Market Making Platform
Hong Kong-based Fulbright Securities has deployed Horizon Software’s platform for market making on listed options connected to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The company was looking for a technology vendor to enable delivery of complete trading solutions in options, from volatility management to market making, and selected Horizon on the basis of its business coverage, scalability, maintenance cost and software stability. Horizon says the market making platform will enhance Fulbright Securities’ cost-effectiveness and provide it with superior liquidity and more efficient trading flow.
Style Analytics and Sustainalytics Integrate ESG Data in Skyline
Style Analytics, a factor-based analysis software provider, has made a distribution agreement with Sustainalytics, an ESG research, ratings, and analysis firm, to offer ESG considerations to investors. Customers will have access to a portfolio level view of Sustainalytics’ company ESG data using Style Analytics’ Skyline product. As a result, investors will gain perspective into the company level exposures of their portfolios. Bob Mann, president and chief operating officer at Sustainalytics, says investors will have more insight into the ESG risk factors their funds are exposed to based on their underlying holdings and how these factors could impact their risk-return profile.
Thinknum $11.6 million Funding Supports Penetration into New Markets
Thinknum, a provider of alternative data culled from the web, has received $11.6 million in a Series A funding round. The company plans to use the capital to fund its expansion into the institutional investment community and corporate market. Thinknum’s software-as-a-service platform evaluates a wide array of public online sources to generate datasets. One example of its predictive intelligence is its interpretation of the performance of retailers after analysing median income levels near individual store locations. Thinknum intelligence is used in equity research and analysis by financial firms such as Barclays, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Archax Partners Tokeny to Harness Digital Securities
Archax is partnering Tokeny, a compliant tokenisation platform delivering institutional grade solutions in the issuance, lifecycle management and secondary trading of digital securities. The partnership ensures that Tokeny’s issued security tokens will be listed on the Archax exchange. Luc Falempin, Tokeny CEO, says that for blockchain to become the preferred infrastructure in the industry, it is imperative for there to be seamless transferability between key actors. Graham Rodford, Archax CEO, adds: “Tokenisation of real-world assets using blockchain will not only unlock liquidity and create secondary markets for assets that are hard to trade, but also potentially disrupt traditional financial markets.”
Platinum Asset Management Selects Catena TRACE Reporting
Catena Technologies is providing its TRACE Reporting solution to Australian equity-focused investment manager Platinum Asset Management to support its OTC derivatives transaction reporting requirements under EMIR. TRACE Reporting is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that manages a range of functional requirements for trade reporting including cross-asset coverage, valuation and collateral, and multi-jurisdictional support. The TRACE Reporting system enables financial institutions to report both OTC derivatives and exchange-traded transactions to regulators via trade repositories, approved reporting mechanisms (ARMs), and approved publication arrangements (APAs).
FTSE Russell Works with DAR Data Services on Indicative Digital Assets Index
FTSE Russell is working with DAR Data Services (DAR) to introduce an indicative FTSE Digital Assets Index. The index will be used to evaluate and test a benchmark for the most actively traded digital assets, and is designed to help the establishment of industry standards and transparency in the digital assets market. The indicative index, which will be available to registered users, will be calculated every 15 seconds, 24×7 with data sourced from selected digital exchanges vetted and approved by DAR. FTSE Russell will also provide a Volume Weighted Average Price (VWAP) for all 100 constituent digital assets.
Xelion Provides Call Recording Functionality for MiFID II Compliance
Xelion, a cloud telephony provider, is providing MiFID II compliance through a call recording function in its latest version of the Xelion service. MiFID II requires all calls relating to financial trades to be recorded. The Xelion recording feature can be configured to required groups, users, or phone numbers, which can save storage. Users have control over who can access the recordings, which are available through Xelion’s applications.
Infragistics and Adaptable Tools Bring Integrated Charting to Data Grids
Infragistics, a user interface component provider, and Adaptable Tools, provider of the HTML5 data grid add-on AdaptableBlotter, have allied to offer integrated, live charting within data grids. Users will be able to switch between charting and table views, and use other features that allow them to manipulate data. Some of the key features include live charts that update automatically as grid data ticks, callouts and final values, and a query capability to show users the data that matters.
Jonathan Kellner Named CEO of MEMX
Jonathan Kellner has joined Members Exchange (MEMX), a recently established member-owned equities exchange. Founding members include Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Charles Schwab, Citadel Securities, E*Trade, Fidelity Investments, Morgan Stanley, TD Ameritrade, UBS, and Virtu Financial. Before signing on to MEMX, Kellner led Instinet through the acquisition of BlockCross ATS from State Street, and the transition through regulatory change, including Dodd-Frank and MiFID II.
Tradeweb Filing for IPO
Bond and derivative platform Tradeweb Markets, which is co-owned by Refinitiv, is filing for a US initial public offering (IPO) at $100 million. J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are leading the IPO. Although Tradeweb is going public, Refinitiv will continue to hold a dominant interest in Tradeweb after the IPO.