Broadridge names Roz Smith as chief operating officer of international business

Broadridge Financial Solutions has named Roz Smith as chief operating officer of Broadridge International. Smith took up the post on 1 May 2024, is based in London and will work with Mike Sleightholme, president of Broadridge International, to further scale and grow Broadridge across the EMEA and Asia Pacific regions.

Smith joined Broadridge from HSBC where she spent 18 years in management roles, most recently serving as head of strategy and change management in the non-financial risk team of the bank’s markets and securities services business.

Wall Street Horizon Adds TMX Canadian Stock Coverage to Corporate Event Dataset

Wall Street Horizon, a provider of global corporate event data, has expanded its data coverage to include all common stocks traded on Toronto Stock Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange. This increases its data universe by 15%, totalling over 11,000 publicly traded companies worldwide.

Wall Street Horizon, a TMX company, offers more than 40 corporate event types including flagship earnings and dividend calendars. The extended event data coverage features small/medium cap equities and provides insight to parts of the market that previously received little exposure.

“Full TMX Canadian stock coverage for highly accurate corporate event data is essential for our buy-side clients to monitor their comprehensive watchlists, which include midcap and microcap stocks,” says Dominic Dowd, vice president, TMX Datalinx Product, Strategy & Analytics. “In a similar vein, we are actively reviewing client driven opportunities to expand our global event coverage in additional markets such as London, Hong Kong and India.”

APEX Group Renews Partnership with NeoXam

Apex Group, a global financial services provider, has renewed its partnership with NeoXam covering use of the vendor’s portfolio management solution. Apex will continue deploying NeoXam’s technology within its South African offices, underlining its value proposition as an asset servicer in the region. NeoXam will power Apex’s data infrastructure from its local office in Cape Town.

Jon Hugill, global head of open-ended product at Apex Group, says: “NeoXam’s portfolio management solution has enabled us to provide our clients with a seamless service. In addition, the company’s front-office solutions in particular have enabled us to offer an exceptional service in South Africa, a region in which we hope to expand our presence considerably over the coming months.”

Xceptor Makes Data Automation Platform Available in Microsoft Azure Marketplace

Xceptor has announced the availability of its Data Automation Platform for financial markets in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, an online store providing applications and services for use on Azure.

“The collaboration with Microsoft to make the Xceptor platform available on the Azure Marketplace brings us closer to our clients as well as organisations that seek convenient, accessible tools to manage their data management and automation needs. This simplifies the purchasing process and expedites onboarding, allowing clients to focus on what matters and realise benefits quickly,” says Dan Reid, chief technology officer at Xceptor.

S&P Global Completes Acquisition of Visible Alpha

S&P Global has completed its acquisition of Visible Alpha, a provider of industry and segment consensus data, creating a premium offering of fundamental investment research capabilities on S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Capital IQ Pro platform.

Founded in 2015, Visible Alpha provides consensus forecast estimates, key performance indicators, and analytics from in-depth sell-side analyst models and distributes the data through a variety of distribution channels including a web-based platform, APIs and feeds. It is backed by a group of investment banks that are key contributors of research and data to the platform. Their continued contributions will continue to enhance the depth and breadth of the overall Visible Alpha and S&P Capital IQ Pro offering.

Myanmar’s AYA Bank Implements SmartStream TLM Solution

SmartStream has implemented its Transaction Lifecycle Management (TLM) Reconciliations Premium Digital Payments Control solution at AYA Bank, Myanmar’s premier banking institution. The implementation marks an advance in the bank’s digital transformation journey.

The SmartStream solution is delivered as Software-as-a-Service and streamlines tasks including reconciliations, settlement, fee computation and dispute resolution. Using AI capabilities, it facilitates rapid system adoption and comprehensive management of the bank’s transaction lifecycles. It will also add a real-time oversight layer to further improve transaction transparency and automate accounting processes, the whole enabling AYA Bank to mitigate risks and reduce operational expenses.

ICE Benchmark Administration Releases Beta Extensions for ICE Swap Rate Benchmark

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) subsidiary ICE Benchmark Administration has released indicative Beta versions of its USD SOFR ICE Swap Rate Swap Spreads and EUR €STR ICE Swap Rates. The swap spreads and rates expand the ICE Swap Rate benchmark and are determined using IBA’s published ICE Swap Rate waterfall calculation methodology. They are available here.

The publication of the Beta settings follows a consultation and feedback process on IBA’s proposals to extend the current suite of ICE Swap Rate benchmark settings. The settings are being offered for an initial testing period for information purposes and to enable recipients to evaluate the settings and provide feedback to IBA@ice.com.

IBA will later announce when USD SOFR ICE Swap Rate Swap Spreads and EUR €STR ICE Swap Rates settings will be made available for use by licensees as a benchmark in financial instruments.

Droit and FINBOURNE Partner to Produce Position Reporting Solution

Droit, a provider of computational law and regulation, is partnering FINBOURNE Technology, a provider of cloud-based investment data management software, to deliver an end-to-end position reporting solution. The integration embeds Droit’s Position Reporting product that delivers determination of reporting obligations based on consensus interpretations of requirements from Endoxa, a consortium of six global financial institutions, into FINBOURNE’s financial data management platform LUSID. This enables sell-side and buy-side institutions to manage disclosure obligations for long, short and takeover panel reporting.

The unified approach also ensures consistency around complex regulatory interpretations, regulatory clarity and accuracy of reporting. As part of the joint solution, Droit translates and processes detailed guidelines from all major global jurisdictions, automating the decision-making process for shareholder disclosure reporting eligibility. For complete accountability, a traceable audit record is generated for each evaluated position.

Bloomberg Releases Tool for Sustainable Investment Screening

Bloomberg has released a tool that helps investors assess portfolios, funds and indices based on sustainability criteria and thresholds customised by the user. Available on the Bloomberg Terminal and based on the company’s ESG data, the solution facilitates a transparent screening process and can be used for both making investment decisions and to help clients with regulatory compliance.

Users can input their investment preferences by selecting from a wide range of criteria and calibrating precise thresholds from three categories: sustainability targets, exclusion or ‘no harm’ criteria, and good governance requirements. The tool then calculates a percentage figure that shows how much of a portfolio, fund or index is aligned with the user’s criteria and provides a detailed list of all holdings to quickly detect any outliers.

Investors can also use the tool to check, based on their own definitions, if funds align with regulatory obligations including the EU’s MiFID II suitability rules and Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), the United Arab Emirates’ sustainable finance framework, the UK FCA’s forthcoming sustainability disclosure requirements, and future SEC guidance on ESG disclosures and fund labelling.

Investment Manager River Global Implements Bloomberg Solutions for New Tech Stack

A win for Bloomberg with UK-based investment manager River Global implementing a suite of the company’s solutions as its new tech-stack to support front-to-back office investment workflows. Solutions adopted by the investment manager include Bloomberg AIM for order and investment management and BQuant Enterprise for quantitative analysis.

“By adopting Bloomberg’s integrated offerings, we have seamless connectivity in our workflow, ensuring efficiency and accuracy across our front, middle and back-office operations,” says Phil Jones, product and operations director at River Global. “Bloomberg is our vendor of choice for our investment tech stack and we look forward to continuing our work together as we optimise strategies and scale the business.”