Our FinTech update includes news from IHS Markit, Cappitech, Itiviti, MIK, Wells Fargo, CACEIS and Groupama Group.
Hegarty to Head Financial Markets and Fintech Unit
DataRobot reports that Rob Hegarty has been appointed its general manager of financial markets and fintech.
Hegarty, a financial technology veteran, will lead DataRobot’s expansion in the capital markets and fintech industries by “empowering even more organizations to leverage machine learning and become AI-driven,” according to the firm’s statement.
DataRobot specifies that it “enables financial markets and fintech organizations — including buy side (asset managers and owners, hedge funds), sell side (brokerage, capital markets, investment banks), trading, custody, and clearance/settlement — to build and deploy highly accurate machine learning models.…”
Organizations such as PNC Bank, LendingTree, and Wellen Capital — and eight of the top 10 U.S. financial institutions — are able to increase revenue, improve efficiency and the client experience, and reduce risk by leveraging … the DataRobot platform,” per the vendor.
Prior to joining the company, DataRobot says, Hegarty founded and was managing partner of Hegarty Group, “a strategic research, advisory, and consulting firm at the intersection of financial markets, technology, and data. During the course of his 30 years in the industry, he has held senior leadership positions at Thomson Reuters, the Depository Trust and Clearing Corp. (DTCC), TowerGroup, Putnam Investments, Fidelity Investments, and Coopers & Lybrand.”
IHS Markit & Cappitech Focus On SFTR Reporting
Cappitech, a provider of regulatory reporting and intelligence processes and procedures for the financial services industry, and IHS Markit, a provider of information, analytics and solutions, report an agreement that will employ IHS Markit’s Securities Financing Transactions Regulation (SFTR) reporting.
The IHS Markit SFTR product will integrate Cappitech’s platform to offer a process that will meet the industry’s SFTR trade reporting needs by “automating and streamlining transaction reporting to trade repositories for all securities finance instruments. It will also support out-of-the-box MiFID II reporting for additional instruments that will be in scope when SFTR goes live,” the companies say in a statement.
Financial services firms subject to SFTR, a regulation that will come into effect in April 2020, will be required to report 155 data fields daily, including unique transaction identifier (UTI), legal entity identifier (LEI) and master agreement for each trade, the vendors note. Cappitech was established in 2013. London-based IHS Markit tallies more than 50,000 business and government customers, including 80 percent of Fortune’s Global 500.
Itiviti and MIK to Deliver Direct OMS Connectivity
Itiviti, a financial services technology and service provider, has joined with MIK Fund Solutions, a software development firm focused on the asset management industry.
MIK’s order management system (OMS) “integrates in/outbound [Financial Information eXchange protocol (FIX)] messaging with all major [execution management systems] via direct FIX connections and hosted connections provided and managed by Itiviti’s NYFIX order routing network,” the companies say in a statement.
“This gives MIK clients access to the NYFIX service delivery platform,” officials add.
“When we decided to launch our new OMS business, we began looking for a connectivity partner and decided that joining Itiviti’s Global Alliance Program (GAP) was the best option,” Marshall Saffer, chief operating officer (COO) at MIK, says in a prepared statement. “NYFIX seemed like a natural, comfortable choice for us. It is unconflicted, neutral and reliable and offers a range of services for our clients.”
NYFIX characterizes itself as the “broker independent, vendor agnostic FIX community, [that] connects more than 1,600 buy-side and sell-side firms globally and combines state-of-the-art technology and network infrastructure to deliver uninterrupted service with consistent performance.”
Itiviti is owned by Nordic Capital. MIK Fund Solutions, founded in 2007, notes that it “provides hedge fund managers … with a suite of software applications designed to meet the requirements of front, middle and back office reporting. Solutions include data warehousing, real-time profit and loss/attribution, compliance, security master, price management, commission tracking and broker relationship management.”
Wells Fargo Launches Strategic Execution & Ops Office
Derek Flowers will be heading Wells Fargo’s new Strategic Execution and Operations Office, which is an effort by the bank to improve its regulatory compliance operations and to drive transformation, officials say.
Flowers has been serving as an executive officer, a member of the bank’s operating committee and reports to Interim CEO and President Allen Parker, according to the bank.
The Strategic Execution and Operations Office “is an important step in Wells Fargo’s work to meet the expectations of our regulators, do the right thing for our customers and team members, and move our Company forward,” Parker says in a prepared statement.
The new office is composed of several teams — including the regulatory consent order and risk framework execution office, the sales practice consent order office, regulatory relations, and the business process management and operational design team, officials say.
Derek Flowers
Previously, Flowers served as chief credit and market risk officer, overseeing all credit, counterparty and market risk undertaken throughout Wells Fargo, officials say. His previous position will be divided into separate credit risk and market risk functions.
Mary Katherine DuBose, who joined Wells Fargo in 1998 and most recently was managing director and head of Capital Markets, will serve as Wells Fargo’s chief credit officer, reporting to Mandy Norton, chief risk officer (CRO). In addition, Jeremy Smith, a 20-year company veteran who previously led market and counterparty risk under Flowers, will continue in that role, reporting to Norton, officials say.
Groupama Group to Use CACEIS
Groupama Group, a mutual insurance company, reports that it will be using CACEIS’s custodian bank services for its dedicated investment funds and custody of assets managed by Groupama Asset Management on behalf of Groupama Group, officials say.
CACEIS is the asset servicing banking group of Crédit Agricole that serves institutional and corporate clients, officials say.
“CACEIS already administers funds managed by Groupama Asset Management and provides custody for its open-ended funds,” officials add. “With this deal, CACEIS becomes the sole custodian and leading fund valuation agent for the funds of Groupama Group, a major player in the insurance sector in France.”
CACEIS, which has offices across Europe, North America 
and Asia, offers services covering execution, clearing, foreign exchange (FC), securities lending, depositary and custody, fund administration, fund distribution support, middle office outsourcing and issuer services, officials say.
