Editor’s pick
SFDR Compliance to Remain a Struggle for Many Companies
The European Union’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) is still posing challenges for companies six months after its partial introduction. And with its next stage of implementation just a couple of months away for some companies, full compliance is likely to be difficult to achieve, according to a panel of ESG professionals on a recent...
Top Blogs
Why Both Asset and Investment Managers Need to Think Outside the Box on ESG Regulations
By Janine Hofer-Wittwer, CFA, Senior Product Manager, Financial Information at SIX. A landmark report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has shocked nations on a global scale. The findings suggest that the world is likely to reach 1.5C of warming before 2040 as a direct result of human activity, calling the entire world...
SFDR Compliance to Remain a Struggle for Many Companies
The European Union’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) is still posing challenges for companies six months after its partial introduction. And with its next stage of implementation just a couple of months away for some companies, full compliance is likely to be difficult to achieve, according to a panel of ESG professionals on a recent...
UK May Place Data Vendors Under FCA Watch
The UK is considering placing ESG data vendors under the regulation of its financial watchdog in a bid to eliminate greenwashing and to make impact investing more transparent. The government said the Financial Conduct Authority may be asked to bring the companies under its purview because it was important to ensure the integrity of a...
Latest briefs
GRI Revises Universal Standards and Restructures Governance
Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has revised its universal standards to help subscribers better report on their ESG impacts. The revisions, the “most significant” update since 2016, incorporate human rights disclosures and have been carried out to enable firms to better respond to new regulations, particularly SFDR. The Netherlands-based sustainability standards setting organisation has also reshaped…
Deutsche Bank Establishes ESG Centre of Excellence in Singapore
Deutsche Bank has set up an ESG centre of excellence in Singapore. Its activities include a focus on ESG transactions across all business divisions, including its investment bank, corporate bank, international private bank and asset management. It will also consider innovation at the nexus of ESG and fintech to develop new products addressing gaps in…
Investment Association Calls on G7 Summit to Escalate Commitment to Climate Change
The Investment Association (IA) is calling on this year’s G7 Summit to do more to tackle climate change by committing to improve companies’ reporting on climate-related risks. It proposes actions including support for the IFRS Sustainability Standards Board to develop sustainability reporting standards and increased cooperation between national regulators to implement the standards. The IA…
Refinitiv Highlights 2021 ESG Trends
Refinitiv has released its 2021 ESG Playbook: Stability and sustainability in the investment community. The annual publication explores ESG trends for the year based on conversations with 24 industry leaders. Topics featured include the development trajectory for the ESG investing industry and sustainable finance as a whole, regulatory changes, transparency in ESG reporting, quality of…
SIX Releases Gender Equality Index
SIX has released SPI Gender Equality Index, an index measuring the number of women in top management at Swiss companies. The index is part of the company’s recently introduced ESG Indices family and uses components from the largest 100 companies of the Swiss Performance Index (SPI). To be included in the index, companies must have…
SIX Invests in Orenda to Offer Real-time, High-frequency ESG Scores
SIX is taking a majority stake in Orenda Software Solutions, a Canadian AI platform specialising in ESG and alternative data sets, and providing real-time, high-frequency ESG scores and insights into a company’s reputation to measure the sustainability and societal impact of an investment. Marion Leslie, head of financial information at SIX, says: “With Orenda we…
Broadridge Partners Third Economy to Offer ESG Advisory Services
Broadridge Financial Solutions has weighed into the ESG investment market with advisory services offered in partnership with Third Economy, a provider of sustainable investment research. The ESG advisory services combine Broadridge’s data, technology and communications expertise and Third Economy’s proprietary methodology for systematically evaluating sustainable investment efforts of companies and enabling clients to move from…
GRI Calls for Strengthened Sustainability Reporting
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the provider of some of the most widely used sustainability reporting standards around the world, has called for strengthened financial reporting that complements sustainability reporting and takes account of the financial risks and opportunities related to a company’s sustainability impacts – with mandatory disclosure to ensure transparency on corporate contributions…
Nasdaq Acquires OneReport to Accelerate ESG Reporting and Workflow Solution
Nasdaq has acquired OneReport, a privately-held provider of corporate responsibility and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data management and reporting services. OneReport will accelerate the delivery of Nasdaq’s recently announced ESG reporting and workflow solution, to be named Nasdaq OneReport. The platform is available to companies as part of the suite of solutions offered by…
Moody’s Acquires Climate Data Specialist
Moody’s Corporation has acquired a majority stake in Berkeley, CA-based Four Twenty Seven, a provider of provider of data, intelligence, and analysis related to physical climate risks, as part of its wider strategy to develop transparent and consistent standards for evaluating ESG risk. The new acquisition will operate under its existing brand as an affiliate…
S&P Global Market Intelligence Adds Trucost Environmental Data to Xpressfeed
Responding to market demand for unique and differentiated data, S&P Global Market Intelligence has released Trucost environmental data through its data feed platform Xpressfeed. Trucost, part of S&P Global, is a provider of carbon and environmental data and risk analysis. The environmental data is the first of several planned initiatives and releases from Market Intelligence…
London Stock Exchange Acquires Beyond Ratings
London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) has acquired Beyond Ratings, a provider of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) data for fixed income, as part of continued investment in its Information Services business, which includes FTSE Russell. The acquisition offers an opportunity for LSEG to build out its multi-asset data and analytics capabilities by commercialising Beyond Ratings’…
Saxo Bank and Brown Advisory Cooperate to Offer Ethical Stocks to SaxoSelect Clients
Saxo Bank, a fintech focused on multi-asset trading and investment, and Brown Advisory, a global investment manager with a history in sustainable investing, have cooperated to add a digital investment portfolio, Ethical Selection, to the SaxoSelect universe. The portfolio offers a cost-effective way to invest in a sustainable, all-cap, 30-40 stock portfolio comprising US listed…
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…
IHS Markit Adds ESG Solution for Private Capital Markets
IHS Markit has introduced an environmental, social and governance (ESG) data collection and reporting solution for private equity (PE) firms, venture capital (VC) firms, their portfolio companies and investors. The solution is part of iLEVEL, a platform connecting participants in private capital markets. ESG reporting in iLEVEL covers 29 metrics relevant to investors seeking data…
Latest people
GoldenSource Hires ex-ION Director to Lead OnDemand Managed Service Solution
GoldenSource has appointed Xavier Gerardin, formerly lead of hosted services at ION, as global head of its OnDemand solution, a cloud-based managed service that provides hosting, technical and business assistance services for the company’s EDM clients. With 20 years’ experience in capital markets, including managing over 100 financial software programmes, Gerardin’s responsibility at GoldenSource is…
LSEG Names David Harris to Lead Sustainable Finance Product Team
London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) has named David Harris to lead its sustainable finance product team, part of the data and analytics division. Harris will report to Stuart Brown, group head of enterprise data solutions, and will build on ongoing investment in ESG and sustainable investment indexes, data and analytics products. Harris will also drive…
Kay Swinburne Named as Chair of the International Regulatory Strategy Group
Dr Kay Swinburne, vice chair of financial services at KPMG UK and former vice chair of the European Parliament’s Economics and Monetary Affairs Committee, has been named chair of the International Regulatory Strategy Group (IRSG). The role was previously held by former city minister Mark Hoban. The IRSG is focused on promoting regulation that encourages…
Former Teradata CEO Oliver Ratzesberger, Appointed Chair of OpenCorporates
OpenCorporates, provider of a large open database of companies worldwide, has named former Teradata CEO Oliver Ratzesberger as the first chair of its board. OpenCorporates has grown rapidly in the past nine years with its White Box company data attracting millions of visitors to its website every month. Users include financial institutions, government agencies and…
Asset Control Targets Buy Side with Nielen Hire
Asset Control’s appointment of industry veteran Stef Nielen is part of a renewed focus on the buy side, following a number of contract wins in that segment. Nielen, who joins director, strategic development, hails from Axioma, where he was sales director, and has held sales-oriented roles with MSCI and RiskMetrics, among other buy-side oriented suppliers….
Neudata Opens Shanghai Office, Hires China-Focused Data Strategist
After seeing an increase in demand for data scouting services in Asia, London-based independent data sourcing and research service Neudata announced today that it has opened an office in Shanghai and hired Helena Yu to manage its client data requests in the region. The Neudata Scout platform captures over 3,500 datasets across sentiment, social media,…
Featured
FEATURED WEBINAR
FEATURED EVENT
ESG Data & Tech Summit 2022
This summit will explore challenges around assembling and evaluating ESG data for reporting and the impact of regulatory measures and industry collaboration on transparency and standardisation efforts. Expert speakers will address how the evolving market infrastructure is developing and the role of new technologies and alternative data in improving insight and filling data gaps.
FEATURED GUIDE
ESG Handbook 2021
A-Team Group’s ESG Handbook 2021 is a ‘must read’ for all capital markets participants, data vendors and solutions providers involved in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing and product development. It includes extensive coverage of all elements of ESG, from an initial definition and why ESG is important, to existing and emerging regulations, data challenges…
Top White Papers
Practical Data Strategies for meeting ESG Obligations in Financial Services
The ESG investing landscape is poised to become more defined, as competing definitions, standards and regulatory initiatives start to converge. The impact of ESG will be felt far and wide across the financial services community, which will face practical challenges in developing and implementing an ESG strategy that is both effective and avoids box-ticking –...
Exchanges Are Becoming Data Marketplaces
Exchanges and other trading venues have long derived revenue from sales of their data; in some cases they operate substantial businesses based around sales of their real-time quotes and other market data services. But few are well set up to deal with growing demand for other datasets they may generate from their core activities, such...
Events and webinars
ESG Data & Tech Summit 2022
This summit will explore challenges around assembling and evaluating ESG data for reporting and the impact of regulatory measures and industry collaboration on transparency and standardisation efforts. Expert speakers will address how the evolving market infrastructure is developing and the role of new technologies and alternative data in improving insight and filling data gaps.
Find out more
Recorded Webinar: Meeting the requirements of the EU’s ESG Disclosure Regulation
The EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) is central to the European drive towards a sustainable financial market. As such, it is complicated and multi-faceted, and makes rigorous demands on financial firms to source large volumes of ESG data and meet numerous reporting obligations. Key elements of disclosure include sustainability risk, principle adverse impacts, and...
Recorded Webinar: Getting ready for Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) and ESG – what action should asset managers be taking now?
Interest in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investment has exploded in recent years, bringing with it regulation and a requirement for buy-side firms to develop ESG strategies and meet disclosure obligations. The sell-side can help here by integrating ESG data with traditional financial information, although the compliance burden remains with asset managers. The EU Sustainable...
Awards
A-Team Innovation Awards
A-Team’s series of awards recognise outstanding performance by the vendors of data and technology solutions to the financial industry, with a specific focus on Data Management, Trading Technology and RegTech suppliers. Our A-Team Innovation awards also celebrate successful projects within financial institutions (both with vendor support and without) across the financial enterprise.
