The European Banking Authority (EBA) has issued a preliminary assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on the EU banking sector, warning that operational resilience is now under pressure. “Following the outbreak of the pandemic, banks have activated their contingency plans, which have allowed them to keep their core functions broadly unaffected. However, the handling of large volumes of applications for debt moratoria and guaranteed loans, and the insufficient preparation of some offshore units to work remotely added some pressure on their operational capacities,” says the regulator.

California’s Push Technology, which provides real-time data streaming and messaging solutions, has partnered with London-based Baker Technology, a specialist user interface software engineering firm that builds bespoke trading systems for global investment banks and exchanges. Through the partnership, Baker will use Push’s Diffusion Real-Time API Management platform to provide a single, secure, unified gateway for distributing and synchronizing shared data models out to their on-premise and cloud-based trading systems built in HTML5. Financial service firms will be able to outsource UI development to Baker – while using Diffusion, Baker can reduce the development time it spends writing the network stack to connect their user interfaces to a variety of data services.

Italian banking group Intesa Sanpaolo has signed an agreement with TIM and Google to leverage cloud services from Google, using TIM’s Data Centers in Italy. The collaboration will culminate in the creation of two Google Cloud Regions, in Turin and Milan, using TIM Data Centers and enabling Intesa Sanpaolo to develop its own digital services. Innovative technology infrastructure will also be built in Turin to provide Google Cloud services, including a centre dedicated to AI, training and professional support for start-ups through initiatives to be defined jointly by Intesa Sanpaolo, TIM and Google Cloud. A second Cloud Region is planned for Milan to ensure business continuity.

Software provider Devexperts this week launched DXtrade, a new SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) trading platform for the retail FX and CFD industry. DXtrade is an off-the-shelf trading platform that allows brokers to determine their own layout and setup in order to differentiate themselves from the wider market. This includes back-end configurations, where brokers can set up limits, rebates, margins, spreads, and client execution on instruments, group or individual client levels, allowing them to create custom offerings for multiple client segments. DXtrade also offers proprietary trading including custom trading journals, dashboards, modern navigation, and more, on a highly intuitive mobile and web UIs.

Boosted.ai, a distributed machine learning platform for investment managers, has closed an $8 million USD Series A financing round, led by Portag3 Ventures. Dunamu & Partners and Polar Equity Partners also participated in the round. Inclusive of seed capital, Boosted.ai’s total funding now stands at $11 million. Boosted.ai will use the funding to enhance Boosted Insights, its proprietary machine learning platform that empowers portfolio managers, analysts and chief investment officers to augment their existing investment processes, source new ideas and manage risks. Co-founded in 2017 by Joshua Pantony, Jon Dorando and Nicholas Abe, Boosted.ai currently has more than a dozen active clients.

Pan-European retail trading venue Equiduct has reported a record turnover of €9.8 billion for the month of March 2020, an increase of 203% in comparison to March 2019. This strong finish to the first quarter saw new quarterly records set for the platform with a total turnover of €20.1 billion, representing a 109% increase compared to Q1 2019 with a 68.5% increase in market share. On 25 March, a new record for turnover in a single day was set, with more than €681 million traded on the platform. “We can observe a shift of trading activity to multilateral regulated markets such as Equiduct which provide greater depth of liquidity in a more robust environment,” said Wail Azizi, Head of Business Development.

Itiviti has partnered with Diginex, a digital asset financial services and advisory company, to provide its global NYFIX connectivity platform to Diginex clients: enabling them to access to a FIX-based order routing network that connects 1,600+ buy-side, sell-side and trading venues across all asset classes. According to the announcement, the partnership was driven by demand from institutional investors, who wish to include digital assets in their portfolios, while utilising scalable connectivity based on FIX, the industry messaging standard.

Push Technology, a US-based provider of in real-time data streaming and messaging solutions, has completed a £10 million Series A round of financing. Maven Capital Partners led the round with participation from new and existing investors Guinness Asset Management and Stephens Capital Partners. The investment will assist the company to aggressively expand its sales and marketing efforts as well as broaden and accelerate product development. Maven’s Investment Director, Andrew Symmonds, and Guinness Asset’s Investment Manager, Ashley Abrahams, will join Push Technology’s Board of Directors.

DRW, a major global principal trading firm, will use OpenGamma’s analytics in its treasury function to manage derivatives margin. DRW chose the software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution as it seeks to expand its treasury capabilities in response to regulations such as Uncleared Margin Rules (UMR). The regulations require any trading strategy that uses leverage to optimize and be efficient with its use of collateral. OpenGamma’s solution will enable DRW to improve treasury processes by regularly evaluating alternative ways to put on new trades across both clearing houses and bilateral counterparties.

GFT, a global IT services and software engineering provider, has been designated as a global Google Anthos Service Partner. Google Anthos is an open source, hybrid modernisation platform, based on Kubernetes and providing a ‘single pane of glass’ enabling clients to manage and monitor an entire hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructure. It enables users to easily move applications and microservices around their technology estate and across multi-cloud environments with no hardware lock-in. To date, Google has partnered with a limited selection of third parties to drive the platform forward, of which GFT becomes the latest.