In other FinTech news, performance and portfolio management provider Baxon embraces Preqin data as Duff & Phelps expands it cybersecurity practice.
Symphony to Integrate Greenkey App into Messaging
Startup GreenKey, creator of “an extremely thin web application” for voice-based collaboration among financial services firms, is releasing a pilot version of a “voice quote capture” application. It will be available for enterprise clients of messaging vendor Symphony Communication Services for a pilot test, say officials from both vendors.
The Symphony system was launched in September 2015 and has the backing of major financial institutions.
GreenKey offers “softphone capabilities over a secure voice network without hardware,” vendor officials explain. “The GreenKey cloud-based voice software completely replicates the functionality of legacy hardware turrets and T1 lines, but at a fraction of the cost. Users can access the voice software from any device and push-to-talk concurrently in real time with an unlimited amount of users.”
GreenKey has plans to offer “voice-driven workflow tools” such as quote and trade capture, parsing, tracking client inquiry, customer relationship management by voice or phone line recognition, relationship mapping, attribution and sales call reports, officials say. “GreenKey will offer optional real-time transcription of voice communications to digitized text for searchable data and analytics (on-site or cloud).”
For the pilot test, the GreenKey voice quote capture service will be integrated as an app within the Symphony service in the second quarter. The combination is intended to ensure “conversations can be recorded in a secure environment to meet regulatory compliance needs,” say GreenKey officials. “The pilot will allow select Symphony users the opportunity to evaluate and provide feedback on the product. Symphony expects to make the application available in its app store,” say Greenkey officials. The GreenKey offering can be integrated with clients’ existing turret technologies.
“Some of the world’s largest banks and interdealer brokers have expressed great interest in this innovative voice quote capture tool and are anxiously awaiting its release,” says GreenKey CEO Paul Christensen. They need solutions to help them “solve their pre-trade transparency challenges for voice quotes that are required under the ‘Systemic Internalizer’ (SI) and ‘Organized Trading Facility’ (OTF) regimes of MiFID II.” This tool will be the first of many to come from GreenKey “to help clients enhance their global compliance capabilities in this heightened regulatory environment and to unlock the value of data analytics for voice,” Christensen says.
The MiFID II set of regulations to come will include pre-trade transparency rules that are “more far reaching than those of Dodd-Frank, and cover all asset classes, as well as cash and derivative products,” Christensen says. “Given the tremendous impact of these requirements and the desire of E.U. lawmakers to accelerate the pace of the market-rules overhaul, the industry needs to find solutions and coalesce around them. One of the most controversial requirements is that any bank that regularly makes prices, including by voice, will be deemed to be an SI and have to make public in real time any bids or offers that it gives its clients for liquid products.”
Baxon to Integrate Preqin’s Benchmarking Data
Officials at Baxon, a vendor of cloud computing solutions for performance improvement and portfolio management, say that the company’s Portfolio Company Management System (PCMS) will “feature real-time private equity fund performance data from Preqin.”
A new tool will allow integrated private equity benchmarking using Preqin data.
“This new tool means that Baxon users will be able to benchmark their funds’ performance against other vehicles with the same strategy, vintage and geography, offering constantly updated analysis against a pool of their peers,” Baxon officials say. “The benchmarks are taken directly from the 7,900 private equity performance profiles on Preqin’s Private Equity Online.”
The addition of the private equity performance benchmarks “gives Baxon users another way to analyze their fund performance and compare it to others in the industry,” says Christopher Elvin, Preqin’s head of private equity products, in a statement. “This complements the tools already available through PCMS, which allow private equity firms to quickly, easily and accurately gather and display information from portfolio companies to better streamline the LP reporting process.”
Duff & Phelps Hires from Abacus Group
Duff & Phelps, a global valuation and corporate finance advisor, is launching a set of cybersecurity services to help financial services companies identify and cut cybersecurity risk, officials say.
The Duff & Phelps “enhanced service offering” is intended to manage cybersecurity risk “at every stage of preparedness: identifying vulnerabilities and readiness through a comprehensive gap analysis; implementing best practices to avoid compromise; and recovering from cybersecurity attacks,” officials say.
The firm’s cybersecurity efforts will be led by Managing Directors Jason Elmer and Brian Lozada, who joined Duff & Phelps’ Compliance and Regulatory Consulting practice last month, officials say.
Elmer has more than 15 years of experience in the financial services industry, most recently serving as partner and global director of business development at Abacus Group, a private cloud provider to the hedge fund and private equity marketplace, according to his LinkedIn web page.
Lozada also hails from the Abacus Group and has previously served as chief information security officer for the vendor, according to his LinkedIn page. He has also held several global security roles “within multiple Fortune 500 organizations,” say Duff & Phelps officials.
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