Our FinTech roundup also covers new hires at GoldenSource and Quorsus, Northern Trust’s stake in Equity Data Science, and Scotiabank’s custody provider in Europe.
Digital Assets Platform Due Later This Year
New school crypto-currency and other digital assets have gotten the blessings of the establishment with the news that BNY Mellon is creating a digital assets unit slated to create a secure infrastructure to facilitate the transfer, safekeeping, and issuance of digital assets.
The new Digital Assets unit “will accelerate the development of solutions and capabilities to help clients address growing and evolving needs related to the growth of digital assets, including cryptocurrencies,” according to BNY Mellon officials.
Mike Demissie, head of Advanced Solutions at BNY Mellon, will oversee the “cross-functional, cross-business team” that will develop “a client-facing prototype that is designed to be the industry’s first multi-asset digital custody and administration platform for traditional and digital assets,” officials say.
“Pending further evaluations and approvals, we expect to begin offering these innovative and industry-shaping capabilities later this year,” says Roman Regelman, CEO of Asset Servicing and Head of Digital at BNY Mellon, in a prepared statement. Client demand for digital assets, the maturity of advanced solutions, and increasing clarity on the regulatory front are driving the custody bank’s actions, Regelman says.
The new unit will “leverage BNY Mellon’s digital expertise and leading technologies from fintechs and other collaborators to speed up product development,” Demissie says in a statement. The unit will yield solutions that use blockchain/distributed ledger technology.
The use of digital assets will transform the future of custody, says Caroline Butler, head of custody at BNY Mellon, in a statement.
“Building the bridge between the traditional and digital spaces will create a front-to-back ecosystem for innovation. Our digital asset capabilities should help evolve the way the financial industry operates, including custody, collateral management, issuance, investment management and other segments where BNY Mellon is a key service provider,” Butler says.
GoldenSource Taps Industry Vet to Run Buy-Side Solutions
GoldenSource, a vendor of enterprise data management (EDM) and related data management solutions, reports the appointment of Jeremy Katzeff, a CFA and a 17-year industry veteran, as head of buy-side solutions.
Katzeff will be based in New York City and report to Tom Stock, global head of products.
His mandate is to “take the lead role in expanding GoldenSource’s investment data management capabilities globally,” and to “further expand GoldenSource Nexus, the investment data management platform that encapsulates the firm’s data mastering and investment data warehouse solutions.”
Katzeff previously held senior positions “building and implementing buy-side solutions at Broadridge, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and BlackRock,” according to the statement.
Northern Trust Invests in Equity Data Science
Northern Trust, founded in Chicago in 1889, reports an agreement to acquire an equity stake in Equity Data Science (EDS), which it characterizes as a “cloud-based analytics platform that provides decision support tools to asset managers for idea generation, portfolio construction, and risk management.”
The deal “integrates EDS decision support tools with Northern Trust’s core technology platforms to provide highly specialized and innovative solutions to the most sophisticated institutional investors across the globe. The investment is an extension of Northern Trust Whole Office, an approach that integrates Northern Trust’s architecture alongside innovative partners, facilitating client access to new technologies, services and solutions,” according to a Northern Trust statement.
“Northern Trust continues to focus on helping clients maximize the value of their data in order to optimize performance,” Pete Cherecwich, president of corporate and institutional services at Northern Trust, says in the statement.
“Institutional investors need to drive efficiency and transparency and embed data-driven feedback into their investment decision making. By partnering with EDS, we provide our clients with access to enhanced technology that helps them make the right, repeatable and measurable decisions in the quest to achieve alpha,” Cherecwich.
The statement specifies that the EDS platform’s capabilities include the following:
- Research Management
- Idea Generation Screening
- Portfolio Construction and Optimization
- Risk Management
- And Order Generation
U.K.’s Quorsus Names Head of Consulting Delivery
Kieran Mullaley
Quorsus, which characterizes itself as “providers of consultancy services to financial institutions,” reports its appointment of Kieran Mullaley as managing partner and head of consulting delivery.
His mission will include oversight of the “firm’s increasing portfolio of projects with key clients and leverage his extensive consulting leadership experience to expand and enhance delivery capability.”
Quorsus was founded at the beginning of 2020 and specifies that “now over 35 people” are on its roster, “working on a variety of projects across a range of tier one clients.”
Mullaley joins with “25 years of consulting and capital markets experience,” according to the statement, which notes that he “established and led the capital markets operations consulting practice at EY in the UK…. Prior to EY, Kieran was a partner at Capco, leading major capital markets business and technology transformation programs.”
FTF News readers may be interested to know that “EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients.”
Scotiabank Renews Custody Pact with BNP Paribas Securities Services
The Bank of Nova Scotia, a.k.a. Scotiabank, has reappointed custodian BNP Paribas Securities Services (BNPPSS) to provide “local custody services across 15 European markets, representing €3.5 billion in assets under custody,” officials say. The renewed agreement means that Scotiabank can use the proprietary network of BNP Paribas Securities Services across asset classes.
“The mandate covers Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and the U.K.,” BNPPSS officials say.
Based in Toronto, Ont., Scotiabank has more than 90,000 employees and assets of approximately $1.1 trillion (as of Oct. 31, 2020), bank officials say.
BNPPSS reports that it has more than $12 trillion in assets under custody and a proprietary network covering 26 markets worldwide as of Sept. 30, 2020. BNPPSS is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BNP Paribas Group.
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