This Week: Google Cloud/Regnology, Nasdaq, DTCC, and more

Regtech provider Regnology announces full shift to Google Cloud

Regnology, a software provider specializing in regulatory reporting solutions, announced it will move 100% of its regulatory reporting solutions to Google Cloud in 2024. The company is among the first regtechs to do so and will use its proprietary Rcloud platform, made in partnership with Google Cloud last year, to achieve full cloud delivery.

The move to cloud comes as regulators across jurisdictions are exploring granular data collection to supplement traditional template-based reporting. Historically, firms have been asked to send regulators templates containing calculations done manually on their balance sheets, sometimes over fax or using a PDF.

“The problem with that is, each time there’s a financial crisis, the regulators dream up a bunch of new questions to ask the banks,” says Rob Mackay, CEO of Regnology.

Now that regulators are looking to collect these data points, often in real time, a regulator can directly query the data it already has if a reporting requirement changes.

“What that means for the software infrastructure … whether it’s on the reg reporting side that banks do, or on the supervisory collections side, … there’s far more data going in … and being queried,” Mackay says.

Public cloud is able to handle large amounts of data efficiently and, as a result, is finding use cases in regulatory reporting. Most regulators still employ on-premises systems and databases, but as granular data collection gains ground, some of them are struggling with the volumes, Mackay says.

Regnology’s shift to full cloud deployment will, for now, primarily affect regulated institutions. The software pulls data from a client’s banking systems by collecting information from each account, asset position, loan, and so on. Once this information is in the cloud, the software is able to run calculations on the data far more easily than if it was on-premises.

Regulators have the option to connect via APIs to Regnology. When banks submit their regulatory reporting, they can then opt to send it automatically via the same API.

“[Cloud] helps to meet the magnitude of data and the wealth of calculation needed,” says Mireille Adebiyi, chief marketing officer at Regnology.

After making the shift to cloud, Adebiyi and Mackay say that AI is on the company’s “immediate horizon.”

“Once you’ve got that huge, granular dataset, that’s ideally suited for AI and more sophisticated analytics,” Mackay says. The move to 100% cloud delivery, set for 2024, will mark an important step as the regtech provider looks for more ways to modernize regulatory reporting.

Nasdaq completes $10.5 billion acquisition of Adenza

Nasdaq completed its acquisition of Adenza, a risk management, regulatory reporting and capital markets software provider, from investment firm Thoma Bravo. The $10.5 billion deal expands Nasdaq’s risk and compliance offerings and grows its market and trading infrastructure unit, now a substantial part of the exchange operator’s business.

Nasdaq says it expects to realize $80 million of annual run-rate net expense synergies by the end of the acquisition’s second year.

The acquisition was announced in June 2023.

SNB announces December pilot for digital wholesale franc

The Swiss National Bank, along with six commercial banks including UBS, will pilot the first wholesale central bank digital currency for financial institutions on the SIX Digital Exchange.

The pilot, Helvetia Phase III, will run from December 2023 to June 2024. The SNB will issue the first wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) in Swiss francs on a financial market infrastructure based on distributed ledger technology (DLT).

Wholesale CBDC is available for the settlement of real bond transactions. The banks involved will carry out the transactions on the DLT platform as intermediaries for issuers and investors.

DTCC adds trade reporting analytics and UTI exchange to its Report Hub

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, a post-trade market infrastructure, announced the launch of trade reporting analytics and unique transaction identifier (UTI) exchange as part of its DTCC Report Hub service. Report Hub is a cloud-based pre- and post-trade reporting platform for managing derivatives and securities financing transactions mandates in 14 jurisdictions.

DTCC Report Hub’s trade reporting analytics gives reporting parties access to a library of data insights on their reporting behavior to identify errors, trends, and benchmark performance against anonymized peers. Its pilot user group includes JP Morgan, Nomura Americas Services, and Wells Fargo.

DTCC Report Hub’s UTI Exchange, delivered by API, supports the exchange of UTIs by counterparties, as is now required by many of the derivatives regulatory reporting regimes.

Delta Capita releases cyber practice

Delta Capita, a capital markets consulting, managed services, and technology provider, announced new cyber practice and defense services.

Delta Capita’s cyber practice will be led by Philip Freeborn and will offer educational resources, technology, and recruitment solutions for financial firms.

Offerings include a cyber-attack simulation and education program, a ‘Security Operations Center-as-a-Service’, and a cyber control program to help clients prepare and build out their cyber strategies, including training staff.

Duco releases pre-configured processes for accelerated Emir Refit assurance controls

Duco, an AI-powered data automation SaaS provider, announced new pre-configured processes for its Emir assurance solution. The processes provide data controls between trade capture, trade reporting store, and the trade repository, in accordance with the Emir ISO XML formatting.

The Emir Refit will increase the amount of data for reporting, including new fields like the unique product identifier, and changes in how reporting fields are contrived, such as the unique transaction identifier.

TS Imagine launches best execution module and analytics dashboard

TS Imagine, a cross-asset trading, portfolio, and risk management solutions provider, released a new module within its TradeSmart order and execution management system (OEMS) and TS One that simplifies best execution compliance and reporting. The module and analytics dashboard gives traders a comprehensive view of their trading activity, real-time comment capture, and best execution reporting.

With Intelligence acquires FolioMetrics

With Intelligence, an investment intelligence provider for allocating, fundraising and business development, announced the acquisition of FolioMetrics, a CRM and research management solutions provider for hedge funds and investment firms.

The acquisition is With Intelligence’s seventh since February 2020. The company received a majority investment from Motive Partners, a specialist private equity firm focused on financial technology.

FolioMetrics will enhance With Intelligence’s fund-raising offering by allowing asset managers to action proprietary investor intelligence in a workflow tool.

SteelEye releases AI-driven Compliance CoPilot

SteelEye, an integrated surveillance solution provider, released Compliance CoPilot, which uses large language models to accelerate the communication surveillance alert-review process.

SteelEye’s Compliance CoPilot automates the alert review process by analyzing communications data efficiently. This includes emails, meetings, attachments, chats, and phone communications.

PBI picks 7 Chord for fixed income pricing

Investment systems provider PBI has integrated 7 Chord’s pricing engine, BondDroid AI, into its investment management system. BondDroid prices can now help PBI users to optimize and rebalance their portfolio, manage transaction costs, identify booking mistakes, measure risk, and set limits.

The pricing engine processes more than 100 million data points a day, from firm and indicative quotes and post-trade levels to macro risk factors. It will be used in PBI’s investment management system—which includes order management, portfolio management, and enterprise data management—to generate prices for corporate, sovereign, and government bonds.