This Week: Quodd/Gryphon; Citi; Danske Bank; Exegy and more

Gryphon taps Quodd for fund accounting needs

Fund administrator Gryphon Fund Group has taken the Universe+ API-based cloud platform from data provider Quodd.

Launched in 2020, Universe+ provides security pricing, reference data, and analytics on demand for middle- and back-office research.

Research from Burton-Taylor shows that the market data industry grew by 4.7% in 2022. Gordy Jones, president and chief revenue officer for Gryphon, tells WatersTechnology that choosing Quodd was an efficiency play.

“If I can hire two fewer fund accountants to do the same amount of work, I’m saving a significant amount of money vs. the cost of the data,” says Jones, noting that the type of pricing data Gryphon receives from Quodd is “fairly reasonably priced and fairly stagnantly priced.” He adds that the increased efficiency of faster data could also save Gryphon money and time.

Gryphon, which handles “everything outside of trading and gathering assets” for its clients, primarily receives pricing data from Quodd to calculate its clients’ net asset value (NAV) at the end of the trading day and meet the reporting requirements of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and others.

“We’re basically in a time crunch from the 4 pm market close until we have to report prices to external parties, like the National Securities Clearing Corp. (NSCC) and Depository Trust and Clearing Corp. (DTCC), and platforms like Schwab, Fidelity, etc. We have to have all that done before 7 pm,” Jones says.

Gryphon uses the pricing data it receives from Quodd as its primary data source, before cross-referencing with a secondary source to identify potential data outliers. If, for example, the price of an equity security has moved by more than 5% in a day, Jones says, Gryphon turns to a secondary data source to verify that the outlier is accurate. This is important for meeting requirements put in place by the SEC and other bodies. “With Quodd we can find those outliers much faster and push through the process of clearing those compliance items,” Jones says.

Being able to verify the data quickly is important for day-to-day fund administration as well as compliance initiatives such as SOC 1 reporting, which vets the security and accuracy of external service providers, Jones says.

Quodd monitors around 150 international exchanges and tracks trillions of transactions with a 99.999% up time, according to the company.

“With Quodd, we digest the data that they aggregate from the market so that we can put those prices into our system and make sure the funds that we’re striking the NAV for are accurately reflected,” Jones says.

The news comes as the already hot market data industry is becoming increasingly lucrative, and costs are set to rise. Eighty percent of buy-side participants believe that spending across all areas of market data will increase over the next year, according to a report released this week by consultancy Coalition Greenwich. As firms look to save in an uncertain economic environment, more deals on data are likely on the horizon.

Exegy launches ticker plant ahead of new Opra feed

Ticker plant and analytics provider Exegy announced a new ticker plant designed to process options market data. The platform can process the Options Price Reporting Authority (Opra) feed on a single 2U server and operates at a latency two times lower than its previous generation.

The new Opra feed will go live on October 9, doubling Opra’s data streams. Opra says that following the expansion, participants should prepare for capacity of over 120 million messages per second.

The new field-programmable gate array (FPGA) ticker plant offers higher throughput than fully software-based solutions, according to Exegy. The application will use remote direct memory access (RDMA) and Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) for point-to-point connectivity as well as multicast.

DMALink partners with Danske Bank

DMALink, an FX electronic communication network (ECN) focused on emerging markets, has expanded its Scandinavian currency presence in a partnership with Danske Bank, with the Danish bank using the vendor’s platform to offer buy-side clients Scandinavian electronic FX pricing.

The Danske Bank inclusion in the DMALink ecosystem will offer buy-side clients access to specialized liquidity across Scandinavian currencies such as the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish krones. Users will access Danske Bank’s pricing across pre-set liquidity pools.

According to DMALink, the partnership was motivated by buy-side demand and the company’s goal of streaming regional electronic FX prices to its partners. The move aligns with the company’s 2022 growth plan to offer AI-based risk management algorithms and liquidity management tools.

Citi invests in Peruvian FX fintech

Citi announced a strategic investment in Rextie, a Peru-based FX fintech company that provides a currency exchange platform for companies and individuals. Citi’s FX technology, CitiFX Pulse, and instant payments will be integrated into Rextie’s currency exchange services as part of an investment executed by Citi’s institutional strategic investments arm.

The integration will offer Rextie’s clients access to automation, real-time payments, increased liquidity, and competitive rates. Rextie expects by the end of 2024 to exceed $7 billion exchanged on the platform since it began operations in Peru in 2016.

With the investment, Rextie will focus on attracting more small and medium-sized business and customers in the import and export business.

Taskize partners with Xceptor on trade affirmation solution

Xceptor Confirmations Solution, a data automation platform, will integrate with Taskize, an inter-company workflow provider, to offer financial institutions a trade affirmation service. Through the partnership, firms will be able to affirm, confirm, and dispute resolution with counterparties.

According to the company, 5% of unlisted securities fall into dispute and 40% require manual chasing or affirmation. Taskize provides email and offer management technology, while Xceptor handles affirmation, delivery, and exchange of trade data. The partnership gives companies a process to manage and audit multiple correspondence methods within large confirmation analyst teams. The integration aims to solve T+1 and regulatory challenges for Xceptor clients.

MDX Technology adds Braemar Securities as a client

Braemar Securities, a global shipping broker, will use MDX Technology’s MDXT Connect software-as-a-service (SaaS) over-the-counter (OTC) price sharing workflow to facilitate collaboration within its recently formed oil derivatives broking desk. Traders on Braemar’s oil desk can co-author spreadsheets with live oil price data.

Braemar will also use MDXT’s data distribution connectivity solutions to integrate oil derivatives data into its existing data offering. Users can now view live fuel oil and gas oil prices on Braemarscreen.com using MDXT’s JavaScript Object Notation over WebSocket’s feed capabilities, which allows two-way communication between a user’s browser and server.