This Week: MEMX, Bloomberg, Finos, BNY Mellon, IHS Markit & More

MEMX Gains Regulatory Approval to Operate US Securities Exchange

Members Exchange (MEMX) has been approved by the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) to operate a US securities exchange. Its official launch, which was recently pushed back from late July to the third quarter of this year, remains on track.

Platform testing and member certification will begin later this quarter.

Since the exchange was first proposed at the beginning of January 2019, it had been working toward regulatory approval. In September, MEMX filed its exchange license, which was put up on the SEC website on October 31. On November 6, it was published to the federal register, which opened a 45-day comment period.

Bloomberg Tradebook Pays $5 Million Penalty for SEC Misrepresentation Charge

The SEC filed settled charges against broker-dealer Bloomberg Tradebook for making material misrepresentations and omitting material facts about how the firm handled certain customer trade orders.

The SEC’s order found Tradebook routed certain customer orders—primarily orders entered by customers who paid relatively low commission rates—using an undisclosed arrangement that it referred to internally as the “Low Cost Router.”  As part of this arrangement, Tradebook allowed three unaffiliated broker-dealers to determine the venues to which certain customer immediate-or-cancel orders would be routed for execution, and did not inform affected customers that a significant portion of their orders would be routed by the unaffiliated broker-dealers.

Between November 2010 and September 2018, about 6.4 million Tradebook customer orders were executed based on routing decisions made by these broker-dealers. This practice contradicted Tradebook’s marketing materials, which represented that customer orders would be routed by Tradebook’s own “advanced” technology, based on factors such as price and liquidity.

The SEC’s order finds that Tradebook violated an antifraud provision of the securities laws. Without admitting or denying the findings in the SEC’s order, Tradebook agreed to be censured and to pay a $5 million penalty.

Trendrating Analytics Data Now Available via Bloomberg Enterprise Access Point

Trendrating, a global provider of “trend capture” data and technology, announced that its ratings data and analytics are now available to Bloomberg Data License clients via the Bloomberg Enterprise Access Point (BEAP).

The offering on BEAP allows portfolio managers and quantitative analysts to access data to rate price trends, validate investment ideas, add an extra layer of risk control, and capture additional alpha.

Trendrating’s data offers several levels of intelligence, including rating and scoring metrics to help identify the strongest trends to invest in and the weakest ones to avoid, typically over a time horizon of a few months to a few years.

Trendrating rates price trends on over 15,000 securities across more than 40 countries. The data offered via BEAP is available in the following regional categories: Developed World, Developed Europe, Developed Asia and the US.

“With the global markets reeling from the ruthless impact of Covid-19, we discovered in candid dialogue with asset managers that a growing number of industry leaders feel they lack the critical support needed to effectively control risk and minimize drawdowns quickly,” said Trendrating CEO Rocco Pellegrinelli. “It will be equally important to have data that identifies strong uptrends once a bottom is clearly established.”

IHS Markit Acquires Singapore-Based Catena Technologies

Data and analytics provider IHS Markit acquired Catena Technologies, a global regulatory trade reporting firm based in Singapore.

Catena was founded by its chairman, Randall Duran, in 2002 as a fintech consultancy, but became a software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider of trade reporting solutions in 2014. Its Trace Reporting platform automates and manages trade reporting, providing cross-asset coverage, valuation and collateral reporting, and reconciliation. Trace Reporting covers G20 jurisdictions, such as the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the European Market Infrastructure Regulation, as well as Mifid II reporting.

IHS Markit’s MarkitSERV division has been working closely with Catena for several years, said Julian Chesser, head of Asia-Pacific for MarkitSERV at IHS Markit, in the announcement.

MarkitSERV, which is headed by John Stewart, provides end-to-end trade processing and workflow solutions that support all participants in over-the-counter trading, from post-trade notices of execution, to trade confirmation and allocations to clearing and reporting.

The financial impact of the transaction will be non-material on IHS Markit earnings or earnings guidance. Terms were not disclosed.

Arria NLG and BNY Mellon Partner on Data and Analytics Using Natural Language Technology

Arria NLG, a provider of natural language generation (NLG) technology, is collaborating with BNY Mellon to help asset managers and asset owners transform data into actionable analytics.

BNY Mellon Data and Analytics Solutions clients can now take advantage of Arria’s NLG capabilities, integrated with the Eagle Performance and Data Management solutions suite. Combined with BNY Mellon’s financial technology experience, Arria NLG is designed to help clients accelerate their data analysis and translate data into language and insights across investment data categories, including portfolio management, performance measurement and attribution analysis.

Adaptive, Genesis and Itaú Unibanco Join Finos as Silver Members

The Fintech Open Source Foundation (Finos), a nonprofit that promotes open-source software and open standards in financial services, announced the additions of three new Silver-status members: Adaptive, a fintech consulting agency and operator of bespoke electronic trading platforms; Genesis, a provider of the Low Code Application Platform for capital markets; and Itaú Unibanco, Brazil’s largest bank.

According to the release, Adaptive will actively participate in Finos projects and membership events, as well as continue its contributions to the FDC3 desktop project. Genesis and Itaú Unibanco also plan to take part in future Finos initiatives.

The foundation now counts 33 financial services, technology and services companies as members.

Northern Trust Launches Cloud-Based Report Center for Global Asset Servicing Clients

Northern Trust launched a new version of its existing client-facing tool, Online Report Center, as a cloud-based service with a redesigned user interface, available through Northern Trust Passport.

Northern Trust applied a human-centered design to create a user experience that enables clients to access an extensive range of information. The report center is used by more than 80,000 asset managers and institutional investor clients in more than 50 countries, generating 3 million reports per month. Its new features include: enhanced scheduling and interactive reporting and report packaging capabilities, event-based and time-based report generation triggers, and secure email attachments, email notifications, and SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) report delivery.

The new report center platform is currently in its beta phase with a select group of clients. The full release for all clients will be available later this year.

SteelEye Offers Comms Surveillance for Free to Support Remote Working

SteelEye, a compliance technology and data analytics provider, is allowing financial firms to use its Communications Surveillance service free of charge for up to 90 days as the market adapts to widespread remote working.

SteelEye’s platform is being offered for up to 90 days and 50 monitored users at no charge and with no obligation for future use. It includes monitoring Microsoft Exchange email and Bloomberg chat, and can be integrated to capture communications from staff working remotely.

The service is cloud-based and client onboarding can be completed within a day.