Our roundup also covers news from State Street, Gemini Trust, DASH, BNY Mellon, SimCorp and Instinet.
Hearsay Uses Keyword Lexicons to Scan Text Messages
Hearsay Systems, a vendor of digital communications and workflow solutions for financial services firms, has debuted an automated compliance solution that helps firms to better supervise text messaging and protect themselves from breaching financial services and telecommunications industry requirements.
The solution “leverages industry-specific keyword lexicons powered by Hearsay’s next-generation compliance platform with AI-powered risk meter,” company officials say.
The offering has “a set of pre-built lexicon lists that align with firm, industry, and federally mandated advertising regulations. It uses intelligent classifiers to automatically detect any forbidden keywords in employee text messages,” vendor officials say.
“Any texts that include a match from lexicon lists are either blocked or an AI-driven risk alert is created for compliance review, preventing any agent or advisor from willingly or unwittingly engaging in unscrupulous practices via text. Besides specific regulatory matches, these pre-built lexicon lists also are designed to discourage specific behavior patterns that would run afoul of FCC and FTC privacy and consumer protection regulations, such as direct solicitation,” according to Hearsay.
“We recognized this as a problem for our customers and designed our intelligent, modular lexicons to provide a simple, turnkey solution that protects organizations and field representatives alike. It has never been easier for advisors and agents to adhere to their respective firms’ texting policies or for firms to protect their brand reputation across all channels,” says Chris Fernandes, head of legal and compliance for Hearsay Systems, in a prepared statement.
The latest compliance supervision capabilities are from Hearsay’s curated wealth management, property and casualty, and life insurance industry lexicons, officials say.
State Street & Gemini Partner for Digital Asset Pilot
State Street has thrown its support behind a digital asset pilot in collaboration with Gemini Trust Co., a cryptocurrency exchange, that will combine Gemini’s Custody services with State Street’s back-office reporting, officials say.
The pilot will be an implementation of the research and development efforts in the digital asset space, officials say.
The pilot “performs reporting scenarios on a user’s holdings within Gemini Custody. Initially, the pilot reports holdings of two cryptocurrencies chosen for liquidity reasons,” officials say. “However, it can be adapted to report on holdings of other digital assets, such as security tokens. It allows the user to consolidate the reporting of their digital assets serviced by Gemini, an independent digital asset custodian, with their traditional assets serviced by State Street.”
The collaboration targets a “small, but growing demand from our clients for solutions of this type and many technical, operational, regulatory, and legal considerations to be addressed. That is why we have opted for an open model, and started a pilot with Gemini as an established, regulated player in the digital asset space,” says Ralph Achkar, managing director, digital product development and Innovation at State Street, in a prepared statement.
DASH Pickes a New Chief Information Officer
Steven Bonanno
DASH Financial Technologies, a provider of technology and services for capital markets, reports the addition of Steven Bonanno as chief information officer, reporting directly to CEO Peter Maragos.
Bonanno will be responsible for DASH’s information technology infrastructure and technology platform operations, the firm says in a statement.
He joins from Bloomberg, where he served as global head of risk operations at the firm’s Tradebook agency brokerage business.
Bonanno also led several “key projects involving the transition of Tradebook from an executing agency broker model to that of a fintech provider,” DASH officials say, adding that, before that, he was chief technology officer (CTO) at Direct Edge, during the period when the Jersey City, N.J.-based firm merged with BATS Global Markets.
BNY Mellon & SimCorp Collaborate
The Bank of New York (BNY) Mellon Corp. and SimCorp report a collaboration that “connects BNY Mellon’s range of custody capabilities — including settlement, safekeeping, and cash and securities services” — with SimCorp’s integrated front-to-back investment management system.
The new connectivity provides mutual clients with “enhanced operational efficiency and transparency in core investment processes, more efficient enterprise risk management, and increased speed to market for on-boarding,” the companies say in a statement.
Clients will “benefit from streamlined system-to-system data flows and optimized data sets across the investment lifecycle, which can be easily leveraged for greater visibility into transactions and positions,” the vendors add in their statement.
The partnership intends to “accelerate the optimization of typically manual investment workflows, such as settlement management, which continue to burden investment managers and asset owners,” according to the statement.
As of Sept. 30, 2019, BNY Mellon had $35.8 trillion in assets under custody and/or administration, and $1.9 trillion in assets under management.
SimCorp, listed on Nasdaq Copenhagen, also reports that it invests “around 20% of its annual revenue in R&D.”
Instinet Launches Newport FX
Instinet, LLC reports the launch of an agency-model electronic trading platform for spot FX.
The platform, called Newport FX, is a “web-based desktop application” designed to give its clients “transparent pricing and liquidity management tools in order to access high quality executable prices,” according to Instinet. “Clients can either connect directly or through their existing execution workflows, allowing for seamless integration into leading multi-dealer platforms.”
Instinet also notes that Newport FX was developed for the FX buy-side investor.
As part of the vendor’s Newport execution management system (EMS), the new FX platform can “provide existing Newport equities trading clients the ability to synchronize their FX execution with their equity orders for a holistic view, and enable them to benefit from aggregated netting opportunities,” per the vendor statement.
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