ION Group Acquires Allegro Development

ION Group has acquired Dallas-based Allegro Development, a commodity management solutions provider. The acquisition of Allegro is designed to expand ION’s footprint in commodities and its portfolio of enterprise solutions. Allegro intends to continue to expand its suite of offerings, while its clients can benefit from ION’s additional scale and offerings. ION last year acquired Fidessa to extend its reach in equities and derivatives trading solutions.

FlexTrade Partners Goldman Sachs to Provide IOI Liquidity Directly from the Trading Blotter

FlexTrade Systems has partnered Goldman Sachs to release an extension of the latter’s indications of interest (IOI) functionality in the FlexTRADER execution management system (EMS). The functionality adds IOI profiling and analysis to FlexIOI, a framework for IOI distribution embedded in the EMS and providing interaction with IOI liquidity directly from the trading blotter. Traders are alerted in real-time to available IOIs for orders they are working, creating a view of liquidity avenues to achieve best execution. By actioning IOI liquidity directly from the blotter, traders can see the order proportion that can be completed using Goldman Sachs’ actionable liquidity.

Nucleus195 Partners Acuris to Join TIM Trade Idea Network

Nucleus195, a provider of global research and content across developed, emerging and frontier markets, has partnered with TIM, an Acuris company. The partnership will give content providers on the Nucleus195 platform an opportunity to potentially profit from their trade ideas via the TIM trade idea network. Colin Berthoud, founding partner at TIM, says Nucleus195 has a broad range of providers that will increase TIM’s trade idea network and provide investors with additional and innovative trade ideas.

Imandra Gains Seed Funding for AI Platform Designed to Make Algos Safe

Imandra, creator of a cloud-native automated reasoning engine designed to make algorithms safe, has completed a $5 million round of seed funding led by UK and US investors AlbionVC, IQ Capital and LiveOak Venture Partners. The capital will be used to support application of the company’s Reasoning as a Service platform in financial services and other sectors, and to hire more AI, engineering and product specialists. Grant Passmore, co-founder and co-CEO at Imandra, notes that as reliance on complex software grows, advances in AI are needed to ensure the algorithms we depend on are safe, explainable and fair.

CME Group Releases ENSO Data Insights

CME Group has released ENSO Data Insights, a benchmarking tool using ENSO’s alternative dataset. ENSO is part of the CME Group. Data Insights gives hedge funds, asset managers and banks access to a diverse pool of global multi-asset class securities to help them compare best execution financing rates, trend analysis for long and short position sector changes, sector breakdown, top position movers and most active stock borrow rate changes as they relate to the ENSO rate. Users can evaluate how market dynamics are driving costs and demands to borrow stock, optimise counterparty management and seize alpha generating opportunities.

Glue42 Adds Apps to Desktop Interoperability Ecosystem

Glue42 has expanded its desktop interoperability ecosystem with the addition of independent software vendors Adaptable Tools and BCC Group, and service provider Norman & Sons. The providers are offering their services via the Glue42 platform that uses the FINOS FDC3 open standard to provide a seamless user interface and data integration between desktop apps. Adaptable Tools adds its Adaptable Blotter DataGrid solution, BCC Group real-time market data sources via its cloud native ONE Solution, and Norman & Sons’ its expertise in ensuring user experience and interface designs, as well as desktop implementations, align with customers’ business goals.

SFTR Legislation Enters Official Journal of the EU

The seven delegated regulations and three implementing regulations comprising Securities Financing Transactions Regulation (SFTR) level II legislation were published in the Official Journal of the EU on March 22, 2019, making the regime legally binding.

According to the International Securities Lending Association, the reporting obligations deadlines will be as follows: April 11, 2020, reporting obligation for credit institutions and investment firms as well as all third country regulated firms; July 11, 2020, reporting obligation for CSDs and CCPs; October 11, 2020, reporting obligation for all other financial counterparties; January 11, 2021, reporting obligation for all non-financial counterparties.

CellTrust SL2 Reports 1900% YOY Revenue Growth

US-based CellTrust Corporation, which provides enterprise mobile communications compliance solutions, on March 25 announced a 1900% growth in revenue for 2018 over 2017. “As the RegTech market rapidly expands around the world, CellTrust is meeting the technology and geographic mobility demands,” explained Sean Moshir, CellTrust’s Chairman and CEO. “The number of financial enterprises and countries our SL2 mobile compliance solution is being used in has grown significantly, as have revenue and market share.”

“We are on track to release the next version of our flagship CellTrust SL2 application mid-2019,” added Sean Moshir, Chairman and CEO.

Thasos Releases 2019 REIT Performance Update

Thasos, an alternative data firm that transforms real-time locations from mobile phones into actionable insights, has published its 2019 REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) Performance Update, providing insights into the state of US retail REITs. Using a new methodology, Thasos Trade Area, the study reports activities such as foot traffic at US malls. Greg Skibiski, founder and CEO of Thasos, says: “The granularity of our data provides insights never before available and will be critical in uncovering opportunities for investors.” The report follows Bloomberg’s addition of Thasos data to its Enterprise Access Point solution.

Arab Bank Builds Mobile Trading App on Integral platform

Arab Bank (Switzerland) has deployed a trading app built on the Integral platform to expand its mobile trading services targeted at institutional and corporate customers. The bank aims to provide an end-to-end FX solution, having worked with Integral and its BankFX cloud-based platform since 2014 to provide a single dealer platform for clients.