Our free FinTech roundup covers Bloomberg’s new managed service, SteelEye’s special offer, a new link to Borsa İstanbul, and ESMA's SFTR reporting approvals.
Catena Technologies Becomes Part of IHS Markit
IHS Markit, a market data, analytics and solutions vendor, reports that it will be able to offer a solution that integrates transaction reporting with other post-trade and compliance workflows via the acquisition of Catena Technologies, a regulatory trade reporting provider for an undisclosed sum.
The combination with IHS Markit’s offerings “will enable customers to streamline their trade-reporting processes, reduce costs, and focus on strategic initiatives,” says Aaron Hallmark, CEO of Catena, in a prepared statement. The vendor is based in Singapore.
The acquisition “is a logical extension of IHS Markit’s strategy to provide comprehensive solutions that enable our customers to fulfill their global regulatory compliance needs,” says John Barneson, senior vice president and head of platforms and regulatory compliance at IHS Markit, in a prepared statement.
Catena was founded in 2002 by Randall E. Duran, who served as chairman. The company began as a financial technology consultancy and later became a software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider of trade reporting solutions in 2014, officials say.
The vendor’s Trace Reporting platform “automates and manages trade reporting, providing cross-asset coverage, valuation and collateral reporting, and reconciliation,” officials say. The offering covers G20 jurisdictions, including the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) and MiFID II reporting.
The MarkitSERV team of IHS Markit has been working “with Catena for several years to help investment firms and banks overcome the numerous data and technology hurdles they face in trade reporting,” adds Julian Chesser, head of Asia Pacific for MarkitSERV, in a statement.
Bloomberg Launches Data License Plus Service
Bloomberg reports the advent of its Data License Plus (DL+), a managed service that “aggregates a client’s Bloomberg data into a single dataset and enables users to explore and interact with the data through a web-based user interface.”
DL+ “enhances the client experience by making Data License data easier to use throughout the client enterprise while reducing clients’ data processing efforts,” Bloomberg says in a statement.
As a response to the current coronavirus-created work-from-home environment, Bloomberg says it has “accelerated the release of its new DL+ service,” which “gives users the ability to access their Bloomberg Data License content from anywhere, while also making the data easier to use by presenting it in an aggregated, linked and organized structure.”
SteelEye Offers Free Surveillance for 90 Days
SteelEye, a compliance technology and data analytics provider, reports that financial services firms can use its communications surveillance service for free for up to 90 days and for up to 50 monitored users.
As financial services firms begin to reopen their offices, “reduced density rules are likely to prevail for some time, meaning a workforce that is spread between the office and home,” SteelEye says in a statement.
“Monitoring communications by staff working in multiple locations will require changes in compliance processes, which may prove challenging if access to on-premise technology is needed,” according to SteelEye.
SteelEye says there is “no obligation for future use” after the end of the free trial.
Trading Technologies Links to Borsa İstanbul
Chicago-based Trading Technologies International, Inc., a provider of professional trading software, infrastructure and data processes and procedures, and Borsa İstanbul, which the vendor points out is the “one and only exchange of Turkey,” report that “all derivative products listed on Borsa İstanbul Derivatives Market are now available for trading through the TT platform and [are] accessible to TT’s global user base.” VIOP is the short name of the Borsa Istanbul futures and options market, officials say.
Borsa İstanbul, which has historical roots dating back to 1873, is “the sole provider in Turkey of trading, settlement, custody and registry services for a wide range of products such as equities, debt securities, repo, sukuk, warrants, options, futures, certificates, and exchange traded funds (ETFs),” according to officials at the exchange. The post-trade and depository services are offered via the exchange’s subsidiaries of Takasbank (Istanbul Settlement and Custody Bank) and MKK (the Central Securities Depository).
Trading Technologies clients can “leverage TT’s full suite of tools, including functionality for charting and analytics, mobile trading, options, FIX services and API development, to trade the full suite of derivatives products listed on Borsa İstanbul,” the vendor says in a statement. Those tools support “foreign exchange, commodity, index, and interest rate futures and options on futures,” Trading Technologies adds.
ESMA Approves DTCC & KDPW for SFTR Reporting
The DTCC’s Global Trade Repository (GTR) service now includes SFT reporting under the European Securities Financing Transactions Regulation (SFTR) after approval by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), officials report. The SFT reporting will be offered via DTCC’s European trade repository DDRL.
“With less than three months remaining before SFTR’s implementation deadline for banks, investment firms, CCPs [central clearing counterparties] and CSDs [central securities depository], we are encouraged by the level of their preparations,” says Val Wotton, managing director, repository and derivatives services at DTCC, in a statement.
“More than 160 buy- and sell-side firms have signed up to adopt DTCC’s SFTR trade reporting service — in order to meet their regulatory obligations — while 35 vendors have partnered with DTCC’s GTR to enable an SFTR solution to be provided,” according to the DTCC.
In a separate but related move, ESMA officials extended the reach of KPDW, the central securities depository of Poland, so that it now can support SFT reporting, officials say. The decision takes effect May 7.
“The KDPW Trade Repository is one of four repositories whose registration has been extended to include SFTR reporting,” according to CSD officials.
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