In other news, Cowen expands its outsourced trading efforts, Euroclear has a new chairman, and Pico moves into China
FIS Partners With C3 AI for New Solutions
Financial technology systems and software provide FIS has unveiled the first in a series of solutions that uses artificial intelligence (A.I.) to help capital markets firms fight the increasing threat of financial crime, officials say.
FIS developed these new offerings with C3 AI, and the AML Compliance Hub applies machine learning to the “organizational data” that trading firms have as a way to boost “efficiency and better manage regulatory compliance and risk,” officials say. “The machine learning-based platform aggregates and analyzes client data across disparate systems to enhance AML [anti-money laundering] and KYC [know your customer] processes, improving decision-making and reducing false positive alerts.”
FIS has been accelerating its investment in machine learning “to help our clients better take advantage of the vast amount of structured and unstructured data within their systems,” says Nasser Khodri, head of capital markets at FIS, in a prepared statement.
FIS officials add that the FIS Readiness Report “shows that 78 percent of capital markets firms plan to invest in AI in 2021 to advance their strategic goals.”
AI has “has great potential in streamlining workflows and cutting costs associated with onerous, manual data review processes,” says Sidhartha Dash, research director at Chartis Research, in a statement.
The new hub “provides a dashboard view where users can view reports and receive alerts as to key risk drivers, suspicious activity, and AML scoring. By reducing false positives, organizations can focus on true threats that require dedicated attention and timely action,” officials say.
Cowen Expands Outsourced Fixed Income Trading Unit
Cowen Outsourced Trading reports two additions to its fixed income outsourced trading unit.
The two new senior hires are Vincent Governara and Chris Taliercio. The positions are newly created. Each brings “over 15 years’ experience in the credit space at buy-side and sell-side institutions,” according to a Cowen statement.
Governera joins from FHN Financial, where he was senior vice president, credit trading, per the statement, and Taliercio spent more than five years as a high yield credit trader at Column Park Asset Management, a New York-based hedge fund.
Both Governera and Taliercio are based in New York.
They will report into Joram Siegel, managing director, head of fixed income outsourced trading, who joined the firm in January 2021 in a newly created position with a mandate to “establish and grow” the division.
Cowen maintains offices in the Unites States, Europe, and Asia, with more than 40 traders, more than 70 post-trade specialists and more than 200 clients worldwide, per the firm’s statement.
Euroclear Appoints New Group Chairman
Francesco Vanni d’Archirafi
Euroclear, a provider of post-trade processes and procedures, has announced that Francesco Vanni d’Archirafi will be the new chairman of its group boards. The appointment is subject to shareholder approval at the company’s July 1, 2021, shareholder meeting.
He joins from Citigroup, where he has been the New York-based chief executive officer of Citi Transaction Services, which provides cash management, trade and securities services to multinational corporations, financial institutions and the public sector, and Citi Holdings, where he managed the non-core assets and businesses portfolio, according to Euroclear’s statement.
Most recently, Vanni d’Archirafi, a 38-year Citi veteran, was the vice chairman of banking, capital markets and advisory for the EMEA region, per Euroclear, which notes that, following the July 1 general meeting, during a “period of transition,” Harold Finders and Franco Passacantando will continue as interim chairs of the Euroclear holding and Euroclear SA/NV boards, respectively.
The group settled the equivalent of EUR 897 trillion in securities transactions in 2020, representing 276 million domestic and cross-border transactions, and held EUR 32.8 trillion in assets for clients by end 2020, the Euroclear statement points out.
Pico Opens in China
Pico, a provider of technology services for the financial markets industry, has unveiled a wholly foreign-owned enterprise (WFOE) in China. The WFOE is named the British Commercial Pico (Shanghai) Information Technology Co., Ltd.
Via its new Chinese entity, Pico can “support firms seeking to access this important liquidity location,” the provider says in a statement, noting that China’s markets “continue to open up to foreign institutional investors”; therefore, “many top global banks, funds and trading firms are seeking to increase their presence” in China, the vast nation that is “home to some of the largest exchanges in the world.”
The WFOE is “within proximity” to the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) data center and alternative trading locations in Shanghai and is “ supported by local engineering and data center management expertise, officials add.
“Initially, Pico will provide proximity hosting and fulfilment services in Shanghai and Shenzhen for non-exchange members as well as market data via its colocation facility in the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX) data center. Pico has already built out and is operating network and infrastructure in Shanghai and Shenzhen for one of the … foreign investors allowed to trade within the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) colocations,” according to a Pico statement.
The Pico statement also points out that the latest moves follow a 2020 expansion of “its APAC footprint,” with “new colocations in Taiwan and the Republic of Korea” and “market data from Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) and Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) to its market coverage.”
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