In other news, JPMorgan debuts ‘Fusion,’ and Northern Trust has a new partnership.
Public Gets More Time to Respond to SEC Proposals
Bowing to industry requests for more time, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is extending the public comment period for three new rules in the proposal stage.
Industry participants were given more time to comment upon the proposed rule “to enhance and standardize climate-related disclosures for investors until June 17, 2022,” according to the regulator. “The SEC also announced that it will reopen the comment periods on the proposed rulemaking to enhance private fund investor protection and on the proposed rulemaking to include significant Treasury markets platforms within Regulation ATS for 30 days.”
The new public comment periods are:
- The proposal dubbed “ ‘The Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors,’ release Nos. 33-11042, 34-94478 (March 21, 2022) will now end on June 17, 2022. The scope and comment process for this release remains as stated in the original Federal Register notice of April 11, 2022;”
- For the proposal known as “ ‘Private Fund Advisers; Documentation of Registered Investment Adviser Compliance Reviews,’ Release Nos. IA-5955 (Feb. 9, 2022) and ‘Amendments Regarding the Definition of ‘Exchange’ and Alternative Trading Systems (ATSs) That Trade U.S. Treasury and Agency Securities, National Market System (NMS) Stocks, and Other Securities,’ Release No. 34-94062 (Jan. 26, 2022) will be reopened for 30 days following publication of the reopening release in the Federal Register. The scope and comment process for both releases will remain as stated in the original Federal Register notices of March 24, 2022, and March 18, 2022.”
The three proposed rules “have drawn significant interest from a wide breadth of investors, issuers, market participants, and other stakeholders,” says SEC Chair Gary Gensler in a prepared statement. “Commenters with diverse views have noted that they would benefit from additional time to review these three proposals, and I’m pleased that the public will have additional time to provide thoughtful feedback.”
The delays were met with approval from the trade association SIFMA whose president and CEO Kenneth E. Bentsen, Jr. issued a statement.
Kenneth E. Bentsen, Jr
“Providing more time to comment will allow stakeholders time to provide critical information the SEC must consider, including preparing robust cost-benefit analysis, impact on market functioning and, importantly, investors,” Bentsen says in the statement. “Further, the Commission should consider the cumulative impact of its rulemaking agenda and the need for prioritization, particularly given the need to finalize important, long pending rule proposals such as the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) Data Privacy Rule.”
JPMorgan Targets Buy Side via ‘Fusion’ Data Platform
J.P. Morgan’s Securities Services custody business is now offering “Fusion,” described as a cloud-native, data platform for end-to-end data management and reporting solutions for institutional investors, officials say.
Fusion is intended to help clients “integrate and combine data from multiple sources into a single data model” that can scale, help cut costs, and “more easily unlock” analysis and insights, officials say.
“Investment managers use a wide range of data sources with varying formats to run their business but the effort to gather, clean, and organize this data is often manual and resource-intensive,” says Gerard Francis, head of data solutions for Securities Services at J.P. Morgan. “By partnering with leading industry providers, we are streamlining the data onboarding process, enabling clients to browse, visualize and access their data in the cloud or directly within their own applications.”
The Fusion open data architecture “supports flexible distribution, including partnerships with cloud and data providers, all managed by J.P. Morgan data experts,” officials say. “The platform’s single data model allows clients to extend the breadth and depth of their data, and query the relevant information with powerful analytics tools to aid in decision-making.”
When the platform launches, “clients will have access to Fusion’s new and expanding web-based data catalog to easily browse and discover data that is immediately usable, and ready for consumption using the platform’s modern APIs,” according to officials.
Clients can also integrate the content generated via J.P. Morgan’s Global Research and Markets franchise, officials add.
Northern Trust Partners with Enfusion
Northern Trust is partnering with a vendor of cloud-native investment management software and services, Enfusion, as part of Northern Trust’s Whole Office strategy to collaborate with cutting-edge solution providers.
The partnership will allow both companies to offer portfolio management, order and execution management system (OEMS), and analytics capabilities to mutual clients such as asset managers, hedge funds, and internally managed asset owner customers.
The Enfusion software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform offers portfolio management, trade execution, order management, and risk management support, officials say.
“The software components work from a single, unified dataset, keeping investment and accounting books of record (IBOR and ABOR) in sync throughout the trading day, so the front, middle and back offices all have access to the same information,” officials say.
The alliance will yield “mutually supported interfaces between the Enfusion platform and Northern Trust’s core asset servicing platforms,” officials say. The interface support is intended to expedite implementations, improve data access, and boost operational efficiency. The alliance will also provide dedicated service teams from both companies.
In fact, Enfusion “has co-developed a certified, mutually supported interface with Northern Trust partner Equity Data Science, Inc. (EDS), which is in use by several joint clients. EDS offers a cloud-based platform that provides applications and decision-making tools to asset managers and hedge funds across the investment lifecycle,” officials say. The EDS offerings include idea generation, research management (RMS), portfolio construction, risk management, and performance attribution.
The Northern Trust Whole Office open architecture is a multi-asset class strategy for serving asset managers, asset owners, investors, and third-party administrators, officials say.
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