Eugene Grygo, Chief Content Editor, FTF News
The January 3, 2018 deadline for MiFID II is hitting home for the securities industry and not only are global firms moving fast to hit their marks but vendors are acquiring complementary providers, creating patents, expanding their offerings or partnering before it gets too late.
Over the summer, the industry has seen: Risk Focus form a new relationship with Deutsche Börse Group; IHS Markit take on rule RTS 28 of MiFID II; and GreenKey Technologies land a patent for its speech-to-text system to be used for MiFID II requirements for voice orders.
Of all these moves, I suspect that the industry will see more partnerships such as the new arrangements that Eze Software and Charles River Development have just announced in their bids to help clients ease the many MiFID II burdens.
The looming deadline and the need to keep mutual clients happy are proving to be strong motivators for industry vendors.
Eze Software to Work with Trade Informatics
Investment systems vendor Eze Software is partnering with Trade Informatics so that it can bolster its transaction cost analysis (TCA) support for the Eze OMS and Eze EMS offerings, which could help firms “adjust their strategies to minimize trading costs and maximize alpha,” according to Eze Software officials.
“The partnership gives Eze Investment Suite users access to Trade Informatics’ advanced post-trade analytics, enabling them to assess their execution performance against key and custom benchmarks,” according to the official announcement from Eze Software officials.
Trade Informatics (TI), a member of FINRA and SIPC, reports that it offers institutional investors quantitative trading analytics that improve execution via trade analysis, consulting, trade reporting, customized systematic trading and centralized workflow management. “It aims to help asset managers customize and align trading strategies with portfolio manager characteristics to optimize trading results,” officials add.
The new partnership will allow Eze Software’s clients to review their performance versus benchmarks, and allow “peer comparisons across managers, traders, brokers, algorithms and venues to track long-term performance trends,” officials say.
“By combining TI’s comprehensive order profiling with the capability to act on trading decisions quickly and systemically, we are enhancing our clients’ ability to provide a solid framework for best execution under MiFID II,” says Bill Neuman, managing director, product management and development for Eze Software, in a prepared statement.
Charles Rivers Formalizes Agreement with TRADEcho
Charles River Development reports that it has “formalized a partnership agreement with TRADEcho” that will help to automate trade reporting for MiFID II requirements.
“Under the partnership, firms with the Charles River Investment Management Solution (Charles River IMS) are able to use TRADEcho as an Approved Publication Arrangement (APA) to report trades to the public and access TRADEcho’s unique Smart Report Router (SRR) to determine trade reporting eligibility,” according to the announcement.
The TRADEcho’s SRR is intended to help firms “determine if a trade report is required,” officials say. “Where there is a requirement to report, the SRR sends the trade to TRADEcho’s APA. The APA publishes trades in line with regulatory timeframes helping firms comply with their MiFID II trade transparency obligations.”
Charles River officials note that the MiFID II rules compel firms “to make public trading activity as close to real time as technically possible.” This creates the need for an APA for transaction reports to be sent to National Competent Authorities (NCAs) “facilitated by Approved Reporting mechanisms (ARMs), within one day of the transaction,” officials say.
Charles River adds that it has integrated APAs and ARMs into Charles River IMS, and has included “commission management and workflows to document best execution, all necessary data capture, business logic for derived fields, and enhanced FIX interfaces with brokers and venues.”
This “integration with TRADEcho helps simplify trade reporting for our mutual clients,” adds Peter Lambertus, CEO of Charles River, in a statement.
