In other FinTech news, SEB works with Itiviti & ULLINK for an SI system, Sanford Bernstein uses CommciseSELL, and Abacus aids file synchronization across data centers.
ICE to Offer TMC’s Services Alongside Its Own
The Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), owner of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), will be expanding its electronic trading offerings for fixed income liquidity via its $685 million acquisition of TMC Bonds, ICE officials say.
The cash transaction will close during the second half of 2018, “subject to customary regulatory and anti-trust approvals, and is not expected to materially impact 2018 financial results or capital returns,” officials say.
A market for fixed income since 2000, TMC Bonds offers anonymous trading “across multiple protocols, including click-to-trade and request-for-quote (RFQ) in various asset classes including municipals, corporates, treasuries, agencies and certificates of deposit,” according to ICE
“TMC Bonds will offer a new and complementary access point to liquidity for our customers and expand our portfolio of diverse solutions in the global fixed income markets across analytics, execution and post-trade,” says ICE President Benjamin Jackson, in a prepared statement. The TMC platform will also provide ICE customers with price discovery and risk management support.
The acquisition will bring to TMC clients new support that will leverage ICE’s data and analytics, and new access to “workflow solutions far superior to what’s currently available in the market,” says Thomas Vales, TMC’s CEO, in a statement. The TMC Bonds service will operate along with ICE’s fixed income trading and data solutions.
ICE’s financial advisors for the acquisition were BofA Merrill Lynch and Citi and legal advisors were Shearman & Sterling LLP and Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, officials say. TMC’s financial advisor was Broadhaven Capital Partners, LLC and legal advisor was WilmerHale.
SEB to Use Merged Itiviti & ULLINK for SI Support
Recently merged Itiviti and ULLINK, providers of multi-asset trading technology and financial infrastructure, report that the merged company has been picked by SEB, a Nordic financial services group, to implement its client quote management and systematic internalization (SI) system.
The Itiviti/ULLINK system “allows a broker acting as a Systematic Internaliser (SI) to comply with MiFID II regulations addressing quote management, pre-trade transparency, reporting and best execution,” the merged vendor says.
The Nordic banking group has “longstanding relationships with ULLINK and Itiviti,” according to the joint statement. “The bank has used ULLINK to support its equity trading activity since 2004, leveraging solutions for client and market connectivity as well as order and execution management across sales and dealing desks. Additionally, SEB uses the Tbricks by Itiviti trading platform to support equity cash and derivatives trading, as well as its market making operations.”
“We have worked closely with ULLINK and Itiviti to ensure the new Systematic Internalisation solution meets our business objectives as well as compliance requirements,” Christer Wennerberg, product manager equities, SEB, says in a statement. “ULLINK’s modular architecture allows us to easily integrate the new extension with our existing ULLINK OMS and connectivity platform, as well as with Itiviti’s Systematic Internaliser to extend the services we can offer our customers. Our decision to register as an SI under MiFID II was greatly facilitated by the timely availability of the combined turnkey solution.”
Sanford Bernstein Uses Commcise Platform
Commcise, a provider of integrated commission management solutions for financial services firms, reports that Sanford C. Bernstein, has completed two years of production use of its CommciseSELL platform, a cloud-based commission management platform for the sell side.
Commcise’s hosted, integrated client portal supports all commission sharing agreement (CSA/CCA) and research charge collection agreement (RCCA) arrangements, the firm says.
The combined Commcise and Bernstein group implemented a range of commission management rules for Bernstein’s individual asset management clients, and Commcise provided consultancy for the transition from Bernstein’s legacy solution.
CommciseSELL allows executing brokers to transparently manage research commissions on behalf of their buy-side customers in a regulatory compliant manner, the firm notes.
Bernstein is a wholly owned subsidiary of New York City-based AllianceBernstein L.P., which is in turn a subsidiary of AXA.
Abacus Launches File Synchronization for Dispersed Data Centers
Abacus Group, a provider of hosted IT solutions and application hosting for alternative investment firms, reports the launch of AbacusGlobalSync.
The new service enables AbacusFLEX IT-as-a-service clients with geographically diverse offices to synchronize files and data within the Abacus cloud.
Authorized employees can use the service within the Abacus cloud to access files from different offices and data centers, reducing the risk of versioning issues while improving latency by up to 45 percent, the group says in a statement.
AbacusFLEX includes real-time file synchronization between file servers in multiple data centers, built-in file locking control to prevent potential data loss, and the option of file server auditing. All client data is secured within the Abacus cloud.
The company has offices in New York, NY; San Francisco, CA; Boston, MA; Dallas, TX; Greenwich, CT; Los Angeles, CA; Charlotte, NC; and London, England.
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