The Derivatives Service Bureau (DSB), founded by the Association of National Numbering Agencies (ANNA), to facilitate the allocation and maintenance of ISINs, CFIs and FISNs for OTC derivatives, is calling on industry to respond to a first consultation on the fee model principles underpinning the Unique Product Identifier (UPI) service, which opened this week. The DSB urges market participants required to report to trade repositories anywhere in the world, and will be mandated to incorporate the UPI into their workflows, to review and respond to the consultation.

Mizuho Americas has deployed Fenergo client lifecycle management (CLM) software to automate Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulatory processes, digitalise workflows and accelerate client onboarding. The Fenergo implementation replaces manual processes and provides Mizuho Americas with a single, comprehensive view of customers across all business lines. Mizuho Americas’ parent, Mizuho Financial Group, is also planning to implement Fenergo’s CLM solution across its Global Securities division.

SmartStream Technologies, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management solutions provider, has launched a new corporate brand identity, including an updated logo and website. The new logo includes the infinity symbol, selected to demonstrate the continual evolution of the business, in line with the rapid pace of industry change.

CEO Haytham Kaddoura said: “We are proud of our history. With over four decades of experience behind us, we are a trusted partner to the financial industry, transforming middle and back-office operations globally. Our wealth of practical knowledge, coupled with a constant focus on innovation, sets us apart from the rest”.

NICE Actimize today announced that FACEPOINT, which provides a biometric risk screening engine offering facial recognition technology for advanced KYC and watch list risk screening, has joined its X-Sight Marketplace. FACEPOINT uses facial recognition to disambiguate potential matches, reduce false positive rates and identify emerging threats such as those posed by unnamed persons of interest that are not covered by watchlists. NICE Actimize’s X-Sight Marketplace, which has grown to include more than 60 technology partners, is a financial crime and compliance ecosystem that connects financial services organizations with data, applications, tools and service providers.

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 to global challenges.

The proposals are included in GRI’s response to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation consultation on its potential role in sustainability reporting standards.

CLM specialist Fenergo has released its annual findings on global financial institution fines which show that for the year to date, penalties have totalled $10.4 billion for non-compliance with AML, KYC, data privacy and MiFID regulations. The total volume of fines levied to financial institutions for these breaches was 198, a year-on-year increase of 141%. The average value of enforcement actions against financial institutions for AML related compliance breaches is 44% lower than in 2019.

UK-based data platform company RegulAItion has won the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) 2020 Global Fintech Hackcelerator, competing against over 270 submissions from across more than 40 countries. To secure the win, RegulAItion successfully demonstrated how its ground-breaking AIR platform can enable the financial sector to respond to two of its most pressing global challenges today – COVID-19 and climate change. The AIR platform blends privacy enhancing techniques, blockchain and AI in order to transform the way in which regulated organisations across the globe share data.

“We are absolutely honoured to have won this prestigious award. The MAS Global Fintech accelerator is the Oscars of financial services” commented RegulAItion CEO, Sally Sfeir-Tait.

RegTech provider Know Your Customer has confirmed a new partnership with Refinitiv, to integrate Refinitiv’s World-Check risk intelligence data into its own client onboarding solutions. The partnership will enable clients to leverage both Refinitiv’s and Know Your Customer’s solutions through one integrated interface. Compliance professionals will now be able to access Refinitiv’s world-leading financial crime information in World-Check from within the Know Your Customer platform.

“We are delighted to announce this strategic partnership with Refinitiv, which further strengthens our unique offering based on live connections to company registries,” says Claus Christensen, CEO & Co-Founder of Know Your Customer.

San Francisco-based RegTech firm Kyckr this week launched the international rollout of its new SaaS technology platform, Company Watch, which gives clients notification of material changes at a frequency that suits them, enabling them to move from periodic to perpetual, event-driven KYC and remove unnecessary customer interaction.

The launch expands the firm’s KYC solutions suite from point in time, manual, one off authentication of customers to real time, automated, ongoing monitoring. Late-stage commercial discussions with several major financial institutions in Europe are currently underway and follow on from the on-boarding of Kyckr’s first client, a European Tier 1 bank.

RegTech platform TruNarrative has partnered with business verification & KYC specialist kompany to add the Austrian RegTech’s digital onboarding solutions to the TruNarrative App Store.TruNarrative’s partnership with the kompany data network means its customers can now access entity information directly from the primary source, reducing manual KYB processes and enabling a low friction digital onboarding journey for new clients.