Exegy Whitepaper Highlights Rising Infrastructure Tax of Continuous Global Trading

A new whitepaper from Exegy reveals that trading firms face mounting operational complexity and an “infrastructure tax” as capital markets expand across geographies, asset classes, and continuous trading hours. With technical debt already consuming an estimated 21% to 40% of enterprise IT budgets, firms are under pressure to scale market access without compounding their operational overhead.

The report identifies several key drivers behind this burden. Overnight US equity volumes regularly surpass 600 million shares during volatile periods, whilst MOON ATS notional activity surged 200% between late 2025 and early 2026 amidst an absence of regulatory frameworks. Concurrently, growth in the MENA, APAC, and LATAM regions, alongside digital asset initiatives from DTCC, Nasdaq, and ICE, is increasing data normalisation and connectivity requirements.

Regulatory developments are also accelerating, with the launch of the UK consolidated tape and the imminent EuroCTP forcing simultaneous migration projects. Exegy concludes that while bespoke in-house infrastructure escalates maintenance costs, specialist vendor products allow firms to prioritise agility.

Xceptor Launches Sovereign-Grade SaaS in Switzerland and Japan

Xceptor has expanded its sovereign-grade SaaS offering into Switzerland and Japan, adding dedicated hosting regions on Microsoft Azure to satisfy local data residency and regulatory requirements. The rollout allows capital markets firms in both jurisdictions to deploy data automation, artificial intelligence, and trade confirmation tools within dedicated, encrypted client environments.

Globally, the SaaS platform supports data automation, confirmations, tax, and reconciliation workflows. Its current operational volume includes processing billions of data rows, ingesting terabytes of data, transferring over 70,000 SFTP files monthly, and handling more than one million inbound client emails each week across the US, EMEA, and APAC.

The service is ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certified. System maintenance, security patching, performance monitoring, and software upgrades are managed directly by Xceptor, eliminating costly upgrade cycles and reducing the need for specialised in-house infrastructure teams.

Your Bourse Releases MCP for Trade Server to Automate Brokerage Operations

Your Bourse has launched Model Context Protocol (MCP) for Trade Server, enabling brokers and proprietary trading firms to automate daily operations and query backend data through natural language. The feature is available immediately and allows firms to connect compatible AI assistants, such as Claude or ChatGPT, directly to Trade Server on their own infrastructure using existing user credentials.

The integration supports both data queries and operational actions within existing user permissions. Teams can generate ad hoc reports, investigate trade complaints against server journals, cross-reference account balances, and monitor exposure without manual data exports or custom API builds. Dealers and risk managers can also initiate hedges, close positions, or modify accounts via natural-language prompts. To maintain operational control, any instruction affecting positions or funds generates a preview requiring human confirmation before execution.

Additionally, brokers can extend MCP access to their own clients under defined permissions, providing traders with a streamlined route to deploy API tools, develop AI-driven strategies, and interact with the brokerage’s infrastructure.

ADX Launches First MENA Integration of Live Market Data into Conversational AI Platforms

The Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) has become the first stock exchange in the MENA region to provide direct access to official live market data through conversational artificial intelligence platforms, including ChatGPT and Claude. Delivered via a governed Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, the framework enables investors, developers, and institutions to query exchange data using plain language, removing the need for specialist terminals, complex APIs, or technical intermediaries.

Through this integration, users can retrieve per-symbol market depth, bid-ask spreads, segmented trading statistics, machine-readable XBRL financial disclosures, and index reference data. To serve different market participants – including retail investors, fintech developers, brokers, and institutions – ADX has introduced four subscription tiers ranging from a free tier up to AED 49.99 per month, structured by usage volume, refresh frequencies, historical depth, and concurrent connections.

S&P Global Expands Collaboration with Microsoft to Integrate AI Data into Microsoft 365 Copilot

S&P Global has announced an expanded collaboration with Microsoft to integrate its AI-ready data, analytics, and insights directly into Microsoft 365 Copilot workflows and agentic tools. Powered by the S&P Global AI Data Portal’s Deterministic Retrieval solution – also known as the Kensho LLM-ready API – the system enables users to access verifiable and cited content within their standard Microsoft productivity applications.

Building upon an existing integration of S&P Global Energy data, this expanded capability includes a Copilot in Excel connector for financial modelling and reporting, alongside a plugin for agentic experiences in Copilot Cowork. Users can perform company research, financial analysis, peer benchmarking, competitive analysis, and transcript intelligence without leaving Microsoft 365, streamlining multi-step analytical processes and reducing manual data preparation while maintaining source attribution.

The update follows the recent evolution of S&P Global’s Market Intelligence operating model and the creation of its Kensho Data Platforms vertical. These structural changes combine data, AI, and software capabilities to deliver AI-native user interfaces that make proprietary intelligence easier to connect, access, and act upon.

Buy-Side Firms Seek FX and Listed Derivatives EMS Consolidation for Real-Time Risk View

Demand is growing among buy-side market participants to consolidate foreign exchange (FX) execution management systems (EMS) with listed derivatives workflows. According to a survey by Acuiti on behalf of Trading Technologies, conducted across 65 hedge funds, proprietary trading firms, and asset managers, achieving a unified, real-time view of risk is the primary motivation for integrating these platforms.

Historically, FX execution has operated on distinct infrastructure due to the fragmented nature of over-the-counter liquidity. Consequently, 69% of surveyed firms currently run separate management systems for FX and listed derivatives. However, rising operational complexity and cross-asset desk management are driving appetite for unified workflows. Participants prioritised non-cost advantages, with 69% targeting real-time risk visibility, 52% seeking enhanced execution quality, and 46% desiring expanded algorithmic capabilities.

Despite the clear benefits of combining position views and order routing, adoption is tempered by operational concerns. Migration risk remains the single largest barrier, cited by nearly half of respondents as the main reason for delaying system consolidation.

Exegy to Distribute EuroCTP’s Real-Time Shares and ETF Feed

Exegy will distribute EuroCTP’s real-time multicast FIX SBE feed, the EU’s first real-time pre- and post-trade Consolidated Tape for shares and ETFs, when it goes live on September 14th. Building on a technology partnership established in 2024, Exegy will serve as a redistribution partner for the feed. This includes the European Best Bid and Offer (EBBO), which is calculated using Exegy’s market data technology platform.

The EuroCTP feed will be accessible via Exegy Ticker Plant (XTP) appliances and the Axiom consolidated market data feed. Incorporating EuroCTP adds consolidated trading activity from approximately 130 European trading venues and reporting platforms to Exegy’s broader platform, which already provides access to real-time market data from over 300 global venues.

The real-time feed will be available on Axiom immediately upon launch, allowing firms to stream market access and receive normalised European market data without incurring additional operational overhead.

Cboe Clear Europe to Expand Securities Financing Transactions Clearing to Fixed Income

Cboe Clear Europe, the pan-European clearing house operated by Cboe Global Markets, plans to expand its Securities Financing Transactions (SFT) clearing service to include fixed income instruments beginning 24 August. The service will cover EU, Swiss, and UK government and corporate bonds for all market participants, as well as US Treasuries and US corporate bonds for non-US entities.

Settlement will be processed via Euroclear Bank for European and Swiss instruments, CREST for UK assets, the Federal Reserve for US Treasuries, and the Depository Trust Company for US corporate bonds. Transitioning SFTs from bilateral agreements to a centrally cleared model aims to improve balance sheet efficiency and streamline post-trade operations, including client onboarding, reporting, and settlement.

This initiative follows the 2025 launch of SFT clearing for European cash equities and ETFs across 19 depositories. Adopted by principal lenders, agent lenders, and borrowers, the existing service averages over 1,000 daily settlements, with daily notional outstanding loan values reaching €9 billion.

Bloomberg Vault Adds AI Models for Insider Dealing and Personal Trading Surveillance

Bloomberg has expanded Bloomberg Vault with two artificial intelligence models designed to identify electronic communications that may point to insider dealing or breaches of employee personal trading policies. The additions extend the platform’s surveillance coverage to two risk areas that can require compliance teams to examine communications alongside trading and account activity.

The Insider Dealing AI Policy looks for communications that may indicate the improper acquisition, disclosure or use of material non-public information (MNPI). The Personal Trading AI Policy targets communications concerning employees’ trading activity and investment accounts, including possible failures to comply with firms’ internal personal trading requirements.

The models join Bloomberg Vault’s existing suite of AI-powered surveillance policies, which covers market conduct, non-market conduct and conflicts of interest. Bloomberg said the expanded suite is intended to help compliance teams identify potential risks within electronic communications and concentrate their reviews on more relevant alerts.

Each model has been built for a defined risk scenario and is supported by documentation explaining its construction, risk focus and intended behaviour. According to Bloomberg, large language models are applied following model inference to improve the relevance of alerts and reduce false positives.

The documentation is also intended to help firms assess how the models operate within their AI governance frameworks. This is particularly relevant where compliance teams must explain the basis for surveillance alerts and evaluate externally supplied AI systems before deploying them in regulated workflows.

“Bloomberg’s AI-powered surveillance models have substantially improved alert quality and reduced false positives,” said Jotham Banyikidde, Investment Compliance Senior Associate at Impax Asset Management. “This allows our team to focus on meaningful review and oversight. Just as importantly, the models are transparent and well documented, which supports our internal AI impact assessment and gives us confidence in how alerts are generated.”

The release follows Bloomberg’s introduction of BSpeech, its AI-powered, multilingual voice transcription service. Bloomberg said the combination extends Vault’s AI capabilities across electronic and voice communications, allowing firms to manage surveillance and communications governance across multiple channels through a single workflow.

TS Imagine Integrates Prediction Markets Data into Risk Platform

TS Imagine has integrated prediction markets data into its platform, enabling institutional clients to incorporate market-implied event probabilities directly into their existing risk management workflows. The new capability allows institutions to evaluate how portfolios might respond to major political, economic, regulatory, and geopolitical developments, by mapping specific event scenarios to exposures and sensitivities across multiple asset classes. These signals integrate into stress testing, scenario analysis, value-at-risk, and sensitivity workflows, updating automatically as market probabilities shift.

Prediction market contract prices reflect the estimated likelihood of defined future outcomes. Used alongside conventional risk data, these probabilities can potentially provide an additional signal for tracking central bank decisions, economic releases, elections, and regulatory changes.