This Week: Macrobond/FactSet, Tradweb, Bloomberg, DTCC, and more

Macrobond partners with FactSet to deliver equity market and alt data insights

Macrobond, a provider of global economic, aggregate financial, and sector data, has teamed up with FactSet to provide top-down researchers with insights into the dynamics of global equity markets.

Macrobond worked with FactSet to build an aggregate version of the US firm’s Quant Factor Library, a point-in-time database of factor insights and consolidated data, including alternative data, from more than 70,000 securities across 127 countries and more than 200 exchanges. FactSet Quant Factor Library helps users detect investment themes across global equity markets, incorporate ideas into their portfolio construction process, and transform raw data into actionable intelligence.

The new dataset, which combines FactSet’s coverage of individual stocks with Macrobond’s platform for top-down analysis, allows users to efficiently form an aggregate view of the market by index, sector, country, and other categories. It includes a range of metrics on ownership and corporate governance—including the number of women on boards, executive remuneration, and stock buybacks—and standard data such as earnings yields and EPS estimates.

Tradeweb partners with CFETS to launch Southbound Bond Connect, extending China footprint

Tradeweb Markets, a global operator of electronic marketplaces for rates, credit, equities, and money markets, has expanded its trading link with the China Foreign Exchange Trade System under the Bond Connect channel to allow mainland China institutions to invest in Hong Kong’s fixed-income markets. Tradeweb was the first platform to enable offshore investors to buy and sell Chinese onshore bonds via its electronic request-for-quote trading link to Northbound Bond Connect.

Through the new Southbound Bond Connect solution between CFETS and Tradeweb, onshore institutional investors can conduct price discovery, trade negotiation, and trade execution with Tradeweb’s network of regional and international liquidity providers in the offshore bond markets via electronic RFQ. The expansion of Bond Connect provides onshore institutions with more ways to diversify their fixed-income investment portfolios.

Bloomberg and CFETS jointly launch new solutions to facilitate trading on Southbound Bond Connect

Bloomberg and the China Foreign Exchange Trade System will launch new solutions based on the system connectivity between both parties to facilitate trading on the Southbound Bond Connect on September 24. The solutions will enable offshore dealers to provide market-making services for onshore investors. Bloomberg will provide security master data and valuation data for eligible securities, and the relevant data will be displayed on the CFETS platform upon launch.

Through the southbound trading program, qualified onshore investors can initiate a request for quote from CFETS’ bond trading platform to user-selected offshore dealers that use Bloomberg solutions. Each dealer provides pricing in response to the request on Bloomberg’s Trade Order Management System (TOMS), which is connected to CFETS’ bond trading platform through the new Bloomberg Southbound Bond Connect solution. Offshore market makers will benefit from Bloomberg TOMS automated pricing and trading workflows, enabling greater efficiency without disruption to current market-making businesses.

Bloomberg is also one of the data sources selected by CFETS to enhance market transparency of Southbound Bond Connect. Security master data and Bloomberg evaluated pricing data of eligible securities will be displayed on the CFETS bond trading platform for onshore investors. It is the first time onshore investors in China can view BVAL data on a third-party system. In addition, onshore investors can also access comprehensive pricing and analytical tools on the Bloomberg Terminal.

DTCC announces Project Ion initiative will move into development phase

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation has announced that its Project Ion initiative, an alternative settlement platform that leverages distributed-ledger technology, will move into a development phase following a successful prototype pilot with leading firms. With six months of proof-of-concept testing now complete, DTCC has the quantitative data and qualitative feedback to build out a production-ready workflow and a roadmap for, subject to regulatory approval, future industry integration and adoption.

Specifically modeled around a netted T+0 settlement cycle—but capable of supporting T+2, T+1, or extended settlement cycles—the Project Ion platform is designed to provide a clearance and settlement option leveraging DTCC’s risk management and volume capacity, including netting and the trade guarantee of the central counterparty clearing house, and interoperability between the Project Ion platform and the classic settlement platforms at The Depository Trust Company.

ACA Group buys Catelas to complement proprietary regtech platform

ACA Group, a governance, risk, and compliance advisor, has acquired Catelas, a machine learning-based electronic communications surveillance and investigations platform. Catelas ingests all types of electronic communications, trade alerts, and voice calls to provide buy- and sell-side firms globally with a single view of potential high-risk activities and behaviors across their organizations.

The acquisition complements the surveillance capabilities of ACA’s proprietary regtech platform, ComplianceAlpha, which will begin integrating with Catelas in 2022. Catelas’s patented technology maps how people connect and form groups within a firm, isolates collusion risk, and detects high-risk behaviors. This integration is meant to give firms oversight of control room activities, trade and comms surveillance, wall crossing, bribery, and other material risks through one central platform.

SGX and SET to advance partnership with launch of Thailand-Singapore DR Linkage

Singapore Exchange and the Stock Exchange of Thailand are advancing ASEAN’s securities market cooperation with the introduction of the Thailand-Singapore DR Linkage, the first exchange-level depository receipt cooperation in the ASEAN region, bringing investors access and efficiency to the region’s growth markets.

Under the Thailand-Singapore DR Linkage, depository receipts representing shares in an SGX-listed security will be issued for trading on SET and vice versa. Investors in Thailand and Singapore will benefit from the ease of buying and selling securities via a DR through their local broker arrangements and in their domestic currency. The DRs will trade according to their respective home market rules and regulations.

FinLync launches corporate bank API catalog

FinLync, a privately-held, global fintech company, has launched the a publicly-available corporate bank API catalog for treasury and finance teams. The catalog provides a comprehensive and continually-expanding directory of corporate banking APIs worldwide, which treasurers can compare with one click. 

Each of the bank APIs included in the catalog have been aggregated into multi-bank connectivity and can be connected to in weeks. The catalog also includes proprietary star ratings for each bank API, determined by FinLync’s methodology.

In addition to the new bank API catalog, FinLync recently added three prior bank executives to its advisory board. This includes Anne Clarke Wolff, former chairman of global corporate and investment banking at Bank of America Securities and former head of treasury and securities services sales at JPMorgan; Lisa Robins, former global head of transaction banking at Standard Chartered Bank; and Stephen Ellis, former executive vice president and head of innovation at Wells Fargo.

Temenos announces availability of Temenos Transact on IBM Cloud

Swiss banking software company Temenos has announced the availability of Temenos Transact core banking with Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud, to accelerate hybrid cloud adoption within financial services. Temenos Transact provides a path for banks to adopt a cloud strategy for their core banking systems and take advantage of advanced technologies. The cloud-native banking platform uses explainable AI and machine learning to offer corporate and retail banking, wealth management, and treasury functionality to institutions across the retail, corporate, treasury, wealth, and payments sectors.

By onboarding to IBM Cloud, Temenos will use IBM’s security capabilities, including confidential computing technology and “Keep Your Own Key” encryption.

Additionally, Temenos intends to join a growing ecosystem of partners supporting the IBM Cloud for Financial Services and will onboard its offerings to the platform. IBM Cloud for Financial Services is designed to help financial services institutions address the industry’s stringent compliance, security and resiliency requirements while supporting business transformation and innovation. The ecosystem aims to help financial institutions transact with technology vendors that have met the platform’s stringent requirements.

Supporting a mutual vision for increasing innovation in the industry, IBM Global Business Services created a new Temenos Services Practice. This unit uses IBM technology and Temenos implementation to deliver long-term value for customers. The GBS Temenos Services Practice offers banks resources designed to increase profitability, reduce costs, and offer the flexibility to support future business growth.