A-Team Insight Brief
Continuity Acquires TraceRisk Enterprise Risk Management Platform
Continuity, a US-based provider of regulatory technology and compliance management systems (CMS) for financial services organisations, has acquired Ohio-based TraceRisk, a provider of cloud-based enterprise risk management (ERM) solutions. With technical integration efforts now underway, Continuity becomes the first provider to connect the strategic aspects of enterprise risk management to the tactical oversight of compliance management on a singular, unified platform. TraceRisk Enterprise Risk Management was launched in 2012 as an affordable, easy-to-use set of solutions, including 150+ tailored risk assessments plus thousands of key risk indicators, designed specifically for financial institutions. TraceRisk will now operate as Continuity Risk Management Solutions.
Standard Charted Bank Launches Bearing Point Tax Solution
BearingPoint RegTech has confirmed that Standard Chartered Bank has successfully deployed the tax reporting solution FiTAX to fulfill its global reporting obligations. These include CRS (Common Reporting Standard), FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) and QI (Qualified Intermediaries) reporting.
SmartSearch Receives Growth Equity Investment from Marlin Equity Partners
AML specialist SmartSearch has received a growth equity investment from Marlin Equity Partners, an investment firm with a long track record of backing software innovation. SmartSearch enables organisations to carry out AML checks without requiring clients to provide identity documents, with individual AML checks taking less than 30 seconds and business checks taking less than three minutes to process. “SmartSearch’s robust regulatory compliance platform provides industry-leading accuracy rates and strong customer advocacy,” says Roland Pezzutto, a principal at Marlin. “With increasing regulatory scrutiny and the desire for seamless customer onboarding, SmartSearch is well-positioned to capitalise on the rapid shift toward digital verification solutions and we look forward to collaborating with an exceptional management team to support the company’s rapid growth trajectory.”
Finantix Reviews Wealth Managers’ Digital Client Acquisition
Finantix has released the results of a wealth management market survey, ‘New Client Acquisition: How can technology drive sales effectiveness in wealth management’. The survey shows a shift by wealth managers towards a more digital approach to client acquisition: 87% said they will increase digital lead generation in the next 24 months, with 54% making the digital route top priority. Some 75% of tier one multi-market mangers are prioritising digital lead generation, compared to 33% of single-market firms. There is also increasing need for technologies to help build a single view of each client and prospect and drive personalised insights.
FlexTrade Integrates MSCI Risk and Factor Analysis
FlexTrade Systems, a provider of multi-asset execution and order management systems, and Woodline Partners, a San Francisco-based investment firm, have integrated MSCI’s Barra real-time portfolio risk and factor analysis solutions into the FlexONE OEMS. The integration allows portfolio managers using FlexONE to model orders more efficiently and better understand pro forma risk before staging the order for trading. Additionally, risk managers using FlexONE’s pre-trade compliance engine can set thresholds to be observed in real time. For Woodline, the goal was to integrate factor analytics with institutional grade position, performance and trade management, which has been achieved.
Clausematch Enters Italy with Banca Intesa Sanpaolo Partnership
Following a meeting at a FinTech Innovation Lab hosted by Banca Intesa Sanpaolo, the bank has implemented implemented the ClauseMatch platform within its Cost Management Office governance area. An advanced online document management and collaboration solution, the space is designed to optimise and streamline the process of creating and managing intra-group service contracts.
ACA Compliance Opens New Office in Birmingham
GRC tech specialist ACA Compliance has expanded its European presence with an office in Birmingham, UK. Key to the services offered from the new location will be ACA’s Analysis and Review Centre (ARC). The ARC helps to reduce the workload of Chief Compliance Officers (CCOs) and in-house compliance teams by allowing them to pass on executional regulatory responsibilities to ACA. According to Thomson Reuters, over a third (36%) of global financial services firms now outsource all or part of their compliance function.
TNS Reaches Connectivity, Hosting and Market Data Access Agreement with HKEX
Transaction Network Services (TNS) and Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) have signed an agreement for connectivity, managed hosting and market data access giving market participants greater choice on how to trade with the HKEX. The agreement will provide local and international low latency connectivity to the exchange and between trading partners. TNS will offer traders managed hosting options at the HKEX data centre and will become an application service provider for HKEX equities and derivatives market data. The TNS offer will include market data feeds from the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Futures Exchange.
Horizon and ULTUMUS Extend Partnership with Dividend Forecast Data
Horizon Software, a provider of electronic trading solutions and algorithmic technology, and ULTUMUS, a provider of data services for index and ETF products, have extended their partnership to enable the pricing, sourcing and trading of ETFs with a comprehensive dividend dataset integrated within the Horizon trading platform. Aggregating and distributing additional ETF dividend forecasts data on top of index and reference data, all as a single source, is expected to benefit Horizon’s clients in terms of trading performance, flexibility and accuracy.
McObject Offers eXtremeDB on AWS
McObject has has made its eXtremeDB high-performance computing database management system available on Amazon Web Services (AWS). The company’s decision to add a pay-as-you-go AWS version of eXtremeDB was driven by capital markets participants as they move to the cloud. The cloud version of eXtremeDB replicates all of the in-memory database’s features, including options to use the system as a client/server model or embedded DBMS.