This Week: Finos, Northern Trust, DTCC, and more

Finos brings on 6 new members led by BMO            

The Fintech Open Source Foundation (Finos) has increased its membership to 55. BMO Financial Group has joined as a platinum member with Kim Prado, US CIO of BMO Capital Markets, re-joining the organization’s governing board. WhiteSource has joined as a gold member; Synechron as a silver member; and EDM Council (EDMC), International Securities Lending Association (ISLA), and the Mojaloop Foundation as associate members.

Finos will focus on “developer-centric financial services modernization” in 2022 with specific attention to areas like cloud services certification and DevOps mutualization. Newest gold and silver members WhiteSource and Synechron will bring added value to this specific strategy, officials say.

EDMC will concentrate on Cloud Data Management Capabilities (CDMC) compliance and open-source regulation projects by partnering with Finos to develop the first open-source suite created to accelerate cloud compliance processes. ISLA will expand value across data standards and interoperability, and the Mojaloop Foundation will collaborate with Finos in helping financial services firms in developing countries learn more about open-source readiness and in designing open collaboration models with regulators.

Finos added 27 corporate members in the last 15 months, a near 50% increase, and received 10 new project contributions in the same period, reflecting the growing role open source is playing within financial institutions, consulting companies, open source companies and industry consortia.

Northern Trust launches ML module for asset owner research management

As part of its initiative to bring greater efficiency and transparency to alternatives asset servicing, Northern Trust has launched a feature within its Front Office Solutions platform that utilizes machine learning to empower sophisticated asset allocators with better oversight of their research process.

Each month, asset allocators for endowments, foundations, family offices, and other institutions receive thousands of files including newsletters, fund statements, quarterly updates, and legal documents that are manually filed for investment manager research purposes. The new feature leverages knowledge of a user’s past behavior to tag research management documents with intelligently suggested attributes before uploading them to the Front Office Solutions platform.

The new tool is tailored by the asset allocator, since no two allocators have the same needs. Categories are generated based on historical activity, and the machine-learning model continues to refine suggestions as users interact with the feature. Learning occurs in real time, rather than less frequent learned improvements.

Knoema and ADA release data service leveraging Snowflake

Data platform Knoema and Alternative Data Analytics, an alternative data advisory firm, have jointly launched Express Link, a solution to streamline data distribution and productization on Snowflake.

This new offering compresses the complexities of data distribution from weeks to minutes, allowing data providers to achieve monetization faster and more efficiently by leveraging Snowflake’s data sharing technology. Express Link eliminates many of the technical challenges associated with connecting data providers and business users, resulting in better access to the information that drives critical business insights.

Express Link expands Knoema’s previously announced partnership with Snowflake and its presence on the Snowflake Data Marketplace. Following Snowflake Venture’s investment in Knoema last year, the two firms have established a relationship to bring innovative and valuable data assets to market.

DTCC to launch platform to modernize private markets

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC) announced a new platform to streamline the issuance, transfer and servicing of private market securities. Subject to regulatory approval, DTCC’s new Digital Securities Management (DSM) platform will provide an industry-wide solution that offers common market infrastructure and standards across private markets. The platform represents the next major milestone in DTCC’s efforts to bring automation, standardization, and efficiency to the private markets, building upon its Project Whitney case study.

DSM will offer access to participants through both central and distributed infrastructure, leveraging a cloud-based architecture to enable the book-entry recordkeeping of securities as well as support the burgeoning digital asset ecosystem by providing the option to create tokenized representations of a security.

DTCC is also exploring the ability for broker-dealers to hold customer assets while relying on DSM as a “Good Control Location” for both traditional and tokenized representations of securities, subject to regulatory consideration and approval.

From launch, DSM will optimize primary issuance and transform secondary markets, creating new business model and distribution opportunities for participants while facilitating a digital asset ecosystem. Architected to be blockchain-agnostic, DSM will initially interface with the Public Ethereum Network, but will incorporate additional public and private blockchain support based on client and market demand.

Confluence to acquire regtech provider Compliance Solutions Strategies

Confluence Technologies, a provider of investment management solutions, has agreed to acquire Compliance Solutions Strategies, a regulatory software company that enables financial services firms to meet mandatory regulatory compliance requirements. Confluence is backed by Clearlake Capital Group, and TA Associates.

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in New York, CSS offers clients a regtech platform underpinned by its proprietary Regulatory Book of Record (RBOR) data management solution. Servicing more than 600 clients globally, including nine of the top 10 global asset managers and six of the top 10 global hedge funds, CSS is a fully integrated compliance-as-a-service provider, bringing together software-as-a-service (SaaS)-driven technology solutions, regulatory expertise, and white-glove managed services to support the investment management community. CSS’s solution capabilities span regulatory reporting, investment monitoring, transaction reporting, and compliance program management.

The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2021. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

MackeyRMS and InsiderScore rebrand as Verity, launch combined platform

Following the strategic merger of buy-side research and analytics vendors MackeyRMS and InsiderScore, the combined entity has rebranded as Verity and integrated their technologies to launch the Verity Platform, a platform combining research management workflows with actionable data and insights.

The Verity Platform optimizes the way analysts and portfolio managers generate, share, debate, and act on investment research conducted for actively managed portfolios. Asset managers, alternative fund managers, pensions, endowments, and superannuation funds utilize Verity to access data and analytics, enhance internal workflows to optimize time management of analysts, reduce compliance risk, and organize research content.

The offering includes an enhanced user interface and centralized datasets related to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, management changes, insider activity, stock buybacks, and special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs).

Trayport, IncubEx team up to launch a voluntary climate marketplace

Trayport, a wholly owned subsidiary of TMX Group, and IncubEx, a Chicago-based, privately held company that designs and develops new financial products in global environmental, climate risk, and related commodity markets, are collaborating on the forthcoming launch of a new global voluntary carbon marketplace.

The Voluntary Climate Marketplace (TVCM) operated by IncubEx, will offer best-in-class market access to trade voluntary carbon offsets to the growing base of stakeholders looking to achieve net-zero commitments around the world. They will be tradable through Trayport’s Joule platform, an electronic trading solution for energy markets, providing market access to high-quality voluntary carbon offsets and other renewable attributes. IncubEx will work to build the marketplace through its experience in establishing and growing environmental markets globally.

TVCM is expected to launch in the first quarter of 2022 and will initially support the trading of offsets from: Gold Standard, Verified Carbon Standard (Verra), Climate Action Reserve and American Carbon Registry, which are voluntary offset standards and recognized by the International Carbon Reduction and Offset Alliance.