FIX Trading Community Urges Regulatory Alignment in Response to FCA Consultations

The FIX Trading Community has called for significant changes to UK financial regulation in its formal response to FCA consultations on the UK consolidated tape and transaction reporting. Executive Director Jim Kaye emphasised that harmonising UK reporting rules more closely with EU standards would reduce complexity, lower the reporting burden, and improve the quality of market data. By addressing current concerns with post-trade transparency, the association aims to boost investor confidence in UK-based liquidity.

Regarding the 2027 equities consolidated tape, FIX recommends a single provider to ensure a “single source of truth.” Key proposals include aligning off-venue transparency exemptions with off-book exchange trades, removing duplicative reporting for trades already captured by EU Approved Publication Arrangements, and introducing disclosures for trade execution methodology. The association also seeks clearer regulatory guidelines for order chains and cross-border transactions to eliminate ambiguity in reporting responsibilities.

On transaction reporting, FIX advocates for a pragmatic approach to data sourcing, including the use of Legal Entity Identifiers for trusts and the FCA’s FIRDS as a primary data source. The response suggests removing specific RTS 22 fields while preserving essential transparency data. However, the association cautioned that proposed changes to data points, such as DEA indicators, may require significant system upgrades for firms. Overall, the recommendations focus on simplifying logic and maintaining data quality to support market integrity.

LSEG and Dell Technologies Announce Multi-Year Private Cloud Collaboration

LSEG has entered into a multi-year agreement with Dell Technologies to develop a new private cloud platform and optimise its existing on-premises infrastructure. This initiative is designed to bolster the resilience and performance of various Data & Analytics and Markets platforms that function outside of LSEG’s current public cloud environments.

As part of this collaboration, Dell will assist in the design and implementation of a secure, high-performance infrastructure by integrating its servers, storage, and automation software. This unified system aligns with LSEG’s broader multi-cloud strategy, serving as a complement to its established public cloud partnerships.

The project aims to provide the financial markets with enhanced operational flexibility and continuous availability. By leveraging Dell’s automation capabilities, LSEG intends to maintain full control over its environment while meeting the stringent security and regulatory requirements essential for global market infrastructure.

Avelacom Expands Latin American Reach with Direct Connection to nuam Exchange Infrastructure

Avelacom, the global provider of low-latency network solutions, has expanded its presence in Latin America by establishing a direct connection to nuam, the holding company integrating the stock exchanges of Chile, Colombia, and Peru. The company has deployed a new physical point of presence (PoP) at the Equinix ST1 data centre in Santiago, Chile. This infrastructure allows institutional clients to access real-time market data and order routing through ultra-low latency connectivity, supporting both individual and unified access across all three nuam markets.

The expansion builds on Avelacom’s existing regional footprint, which includes support for the Brazilian Exchange (B3) since 2020 and a partnership with Argentina’s BYMA. By linking Chile, Colombia, and Peru to its established networks in Brazil and Argentina, Avelacom has created a comprehensive infrastructure layer. This connectivity enables efficient cross-market trading and arbitrage strategies between Latin American markets and major global financial hubs in North America, Europe, and Asia.

This development reflects a shift toward more integrated, cross-border trading strategies within the region. By providing predictable performance and high-speed access, the infrastructure is specifically designed for latency-sensitive operations, such as algorithmic trading and market making, ensuring that global investors can operate with the reliability and speed required for modern financial environments.

SEC Approves Cost-Saving Measures for the Consolidated Audit Trail

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved an amendment to the National Market System Plan to implement various cost-saving measures for the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT). This decision includes exemptive relief from specific requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, aiming to reduce the financial burden of the CAT while maintaining its core regulatory functions. The amendment builds upon previous efforts from 2025 to streamline the system’s budget and operational efficiency.

Key changes under the new amendment include the deletion of CAT data older than three years, the relaxation of certain data processing deadlines, and the implementation of a spending cap for future modifications. Furthermore, the plan participants will cease creating interim lifecycle linkages unless requested and will stop reporting rejected messages. These technical adjustments are designed to simplify the infrastructure and reduce the volume of data managed by the system.

The SEC estimates that these measures will result in annual cost savings of between $50 million and $70 million compared to the 2025 CAT budget. When measured against the savings from the 2025 exemptive relief, the new amendment is expected to provide an additional $19.4 million to $24.1 million in incremental reductions. SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins noted that while this represents significant progress, a comprehensive review of the CAT’s long-term sustainability remains ongoing.

Shield Advances Archive Modernization with Tiering and Migration Enhancements

Shield has updated its archive platform with a set of enhancements aimed at addressing a long-standing operational problem for financial institutions: how to modernise legacy communications archives without introducing migration risk, increasing storage costs or weakening compliance controls.

This latest release focuses on three areas – storage optimisation, large-scale migration and expanded governance – reflecting the practical constraints firms face as data volumes grow and regulatory expectations around record-keeping tighten.

At a technical level, the introduction of intelligent storage tiering signals a more granular approach to managing retained communications data. Frequently accessed records remain immediately searchable, while less active data is shifted to lower-cost storage tiers without losing metadata visibility or regulatory accessibility. The model is designed to reduce long-term retention costs while maintaining readiness for audit and investigation, including alignment with requirements such as SEC Rule 17a-4, CFTC, FINRA and MiFID II.

Migration remains a primary blocker to archive modernisation, particularly where firms face risks around data loss, broken lineage and evidentiary gaps. Shield positions its approach around enterprise-scale transfer with built-in validation and reconciliation to preserve completeness and auditability. The platform supports multi-petabyte migrations across legacy and modern environments, with deployments cited at over 9 petabytes and tens of billions of records migrated across multiple systems. Processing throughput is designed to operate at industrial scale, enabling firms to execute migration programmes within defined timelines rather than prolonged, multi-year transitions. Post-migration, data is maintained as a consistent and defensible record, supporting downstream compliance, audit and investigative workflows.

“Archive modernization has been constrained by migration risk, rising long-term costs, and limited control over data,” said Ofir Shabtai, CTO, Shield. “Shield Archive removes these barriers with a connected, AI-enabled data layer – combining proven large-scale migration with more efficient retention and enhanced governance controls that give compliance and legal teams greater visibility, control, and confidence in their data.”

Alongside storage and migration, the update expands governance and legal hold capabilities. This includes greater visibility into preserved data, bulk policy management and self-service controls for legal holds – features intended to reduce operational friction and improve responsiveness during investigations. AI-driven functionality is also introduced to support faster identification and assessment of relevant records.

These enhancements sit on top of a cloud-native architecture with immutable, write-once-read-many (WORM) storage, policy-driven retention and full auditability across the data lifecycle. The emphasis on single-tenant deployment and data accessibility reflects continued regulatory focus on control, traceability and evidentiary integrity.

The update builds on Shield’s positioning in digital communications governance and archiving, where archive platforms are increasingly expected to function as more than passive storage. As regulatory scrutiny intensifies and data volumes expand, the archive is becoming a foundational layer for surveillance, investigation and AI-driven analysis – rather than simply a system of record.

SmartTrade Launches Agentic Copilot with MCP-Enabled Sovereign AI Architecture

SmartTrade Technologies has launched smartTrade Agentic Copilot (STAC), a significant upgrade to its AI-enabled trading and payments ecosystem. The new system introduces an MCP-enabled Sovereign AI architecture that allows banks to deploy advanced agentic AI technology whilst maintaining strict security, compliance and latency requirements. Built on three core principles: full client segregation; guaranteed data privacy with zero leakage to public models; and open-standard Model Context Protocol governance, the system ensures each AI stack operates within a secure, private perimeter unique to each client.

The platform extends beyond the first-generation smartCopilot’s natural language analytics capabilities to encompass all solution modules and workflows. Key features include conversational interrogation of algorithmic decisions, human-approved machine learning recommendations for pricing optimisation, autonomous monitoring of business signals such as client churn risk and liquidity imbalances, and integrated access to smartTrade’s knowledge base for reference data management.

Developed by smartTrade Advanced Innovation Labs and hosted on MetaCloud, the system leverages Equinix infrastructure and AWS tools including Amazon Bedrock to deliver a production-ready, fully isolated foundation for financial institutions.

T-REX Network and Zama Partner to Integrate Privacy Encryption into Tokenised Asset Infrastructure

T-REX Network, a multi-chain orchestration layer for real-world assets (RWAs), has partnered with Zama to integrate Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) into the T-REX Ledger. This collaboration aims to resolve a primary barrier to institutional blockchain adoption: the lack of data privacy on public ledgers. By using Zama’s FHE technology, the T-REX Ledger will allow smart contracts to process data without decrypting it, ensuring that sensitive investor information and trading strategies remain confidential while benefiting from public infrastructure.

The initiative is supported by Apex Group, which services $3.5 trillion in assets and has committed to using the T-REX Ledger as its default infrastructure. The group has set a target of $100 billion in tokenised assets by June 2027. The project builds upon the ERC-3643 standard, which currently secures $32 billion in assets. By combining this standard with native confidentiality, the partnership provides a scalable, compliant, and privacy-preserving foundation designed to move regulated financial markets on chain.

The T-REX Ledger operates as a neutral Layer 2 blockchain, acting as a single source of truth for digital securities across multiple chains. This integration allows financial institutions to move away from isolated private blockchains toward interoperable public networks without compromising operational security. The partnership represents a significant step in establishing confidentiality as a core component of institutional financial infrastructure, rather than an optional feature.

NYSE and Securitize Partner to Develop Tokenised Securities Infrastructure

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), a subsidiary of Intercontinental Exchange, Inc., has entered into a collaboration with Securitize to advance the development of tokenised securities markets. Under a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), Securitize has been named the first digital transfer agent eligible to mint blockchain-native securities for corporate and ETF issuers on the NYSE’s forthcoming Digital Trading Platform.

The partnership focuses on establishing regulatory, operational, and technological standards for institutional-grade tokenisation. As a premier design partner, Securitize will assist in developing a digital transfer agent program designed to support on-chain settlement. This initiative aims to define how transfer agent infrastructure maintains official ownership records and manages corporate actions while ensuring tokenised assets meet the rigorous standards of traditional financial markets.

In addition to its role as a transfer agent, Securitize Markets is expected to join the Digital Trading Platform as a broker-dealer participant. This broader collaboration is intended to strengthen the market structure for issuer-sponsored tokenised securities, leveraging Securitize’s experience as an SEC-registered platform to integrate blockchain technology with global capital markets.

NetApp Unveils NVIDIA-based Software Stack to Manage Data for AI

NetApp has launched its AI Data Engine platform to manage enterprise data for artificial intelligence.

The software stack integrates with NVIDIA reference designs to create a unified metadata catalogue for global data estates. The system identifies and governs unstructured data by analysing file content in place to enrich metadata without moving files.

“Despite massive investments and market pressures to leverage AI for improved productivity and enhanced business decision making, data challenges are bottlenecking projects before they even reach production,” said Syam Nair, chief product officer at the data infrastructure company.

“To take back control of their data, customers need a mature enterprise-grade data platform that was designed disaggregated and intelligent from the beginning so that storage, services, and control scale independently without lock-in.”

The initial release begins this month for select partners, with broad availability scheduled for early summer across various cloud and on-premises environments.

Informatica Expands Microsoft Fabric Tie-Up

Informatica has deepened its integration with Microsoft Fabric and launched a new Swiss data pod.

The update provides general availability for the Intelligent Data Management Cloud to support Microsoft Fabric Open Mirroring. This integration enables customers to synchronise data from over 300 enterprise sources into mirrored databases with one click.

Embedding this support helps organisations streamline ingestion while ensuring data is governed and ready for analytics, the company said.

“As organisations are accelerating their AI and analytics initiatives, they require trusted context to succeed,” said Krish Vitaldevara, chief product officer at Informatica. “By embedding support for Microsoft Fabric Open Mirroring directly into IDMC, we are helping customers streamline ingestion from more than 300 enterprise sources while helping to ensure data is governed, high quality, and ready for analytics and AI at scale.”

A Switzerland-based infrastructure to support European data residency, sovereignty and local regulatory requirements has also been created.