Our free FinTech roundup also covers a new JV from SGX & Temasek, new MF Info Xchange features, and FD’s new head of data.
Digital Venture Could End Manual Processes
Financial operations systems vendor Finastra is partnering with HCL Technologies and its cloud-native services to offer “treasury management technology in the cloud to smaller banks” based in Northern Europe, North America, India and the Philippines, officials say.
“Historically, many banks have been reliant on manual processes for treasury management, which can be error prone and impede growth and agility,” officials say. The “Digital Treasury as a Service” promises to offer “affordable technology that optimizes treasury operations and produces cost savings.”
The cloud offering will include Finastra’s Fusion OPICS treasury software and HCL’s Digital Treasury as a Service and will be hosted on Microsoft Azure.
The Fusion OPICS system supports global treasury trading operations, compliance and risk management and helps banks “transform and automate core treasury operations,” officials say. The HCL Digital Treasury as a Service will include digital and cloud transformation services such as FENIX 2.0, CyberSecurity Fusion Center and ElasticOps.
“Market dynamics, increased regulation and competitive pressure to scale mean that the treasury market is ripe for transformation,” says Denise Parker, senior vice president, partners, and ecosystem at Finastra, in a prepared statement. The partnership will help banks realize “efficiency gains, manage risk more effectively, react more quickly to market demands and take advantage of future growth opportunities,” Parker says.
HCL offers its services and products through three business units: IT and Business Services (ITBS), Engineering and R&D Services (ERS) and Products & Platforms (P&P), officials say. The ITBS unit has offerings for applications, infrastructure, digital process operations, and next-generation digital transformation solutions.
SGX & Temasek Launch Digital Joint Venture
Officials at the Singapore Exchange (SGX) and investment firm Temasek report that they have joined forces to launch an exchange-led digital asset venture that would bring to capital markets smart contracts, ledger, and tokenization technologies
The joint venture (JV) will be building upon a collaboration among SGX, Temasek and HSBC the yielded the issuance of Asia’s first public syndicated digital bond for Olam International in August 2020. “In all, SGX’s digital asset issuance, depository and servicing platform was used to issue four digital bonds by several issuers, with a total size of over S$1 billion,” officials say.
The partnership will make use of SGX’s multi-asset experience and strengths in operating market infrastructure Temasek’s blockchain technology and ecosystem connectivity experience, officials add.
“The JV will look to partner with fixed income issuance platforms to connect to its post-trade and asset servicing infrastructure, providing issuers, arranger banks, lawyers, investors and paying agents with a comprehensive, issuance-to-settlement network for Asia bonds,” according to an official statement. “Concurrently, the JV will focus on other existing and emerging asset classes that have seen growing market demand, including funds and sustainable finance.”
“The early success in our digital bond issuance platform has paved the way for SGX to make a larger move into digital assets,” says Lee Beng Hong, senior managing director, head of fixed income, currencies, and commodities (FICC) at SGX, in a prepared statement.
DTCC Adds Features to MF Info Xchange
Post-trade market infrastructure and systems provider the Depository Trust and Clearing Corp. (DTCC) reports that its MF Info Xchange communications service for the mutual fund industry now offers additional capabilities such as the recently launched “Large Trade Notification” event type.
The MF Info Xchange service “centralizes the delivery and receipt of time-critical notifications and alerts” saving end-users from resorting to faxes, email messages and phone calls, officials say.
The Large Trade Notification builds upon “key capabilities that were added in recent months including a complete audit trail with the ability to view all client activity; enhanced search capabilities; an event calendar to view and track date-critical events; and the ability for notification receivers to customize recipients for events,” officials say.
The service has also been integrated with MF Profile Security, DTCC’s centralized data source of fund prospectus and operational rules, officials add.
“In 2020, MF Info Xchange delivered hundreds of event types to over 400,000 recipients in real time, including consolidated dividend/capital gain schedules, interval/tender fund transaction schedules, fund mergers, and other critical announcements,” officials say.
The new notification type further extends the real time support of the system among fund partners, “starting with the notice of large trade information to their fund partners and facilitating two-way communication.”
“Standardizing and streamlining communication between funds and firms is a high priority for many of us … It’s impressive to see our funds, firms, vendors and DTCC working together to build a solution that addresses these needs,” says Lisa Borth, vice president, director of AllianceBernstein Transfer Agency Services.
FD’s Head of Data Hails from AstraZeneca
Sean Andany
Software and consulting company First Derivatives (FD) tapped AstraZeneca for its new head of data Sean Andany, officials report.
At the British-Swedish pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical company, Andany worked directly for the chief data officer (CDO) and he ran the strategy and build-out of the CDO function, officials say.
During his 25-year career, Andany has worked in data and analytics in relation to cloud and big data technologies, and has led large-scale, global data projects for a retail and investment banks such as HSBC, Deutsche Bank and Barclays, officials say.
“In his new role at FD, he will focus on developing the data services business line across three practice area of data management, data engineering and data science,” according to FD officials. Andany will “assist our clients by accelerating the way they collect, record and consume data, in order to enable their transformation into fully data-driven organizations.”
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