This Week: SEC, SS&C, TRG Screen, Refinitiv, Rimes

SEC Extends Rule Comment Periods, Citing Covid-19

US regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission has granted a one-month extension for financial markets participants to submit comment on any pending rule changes, where comment periods were set to expire in March, including plans for a new model for the consolidated tapes of US equities data. The Commission acknowledged that operational changes implemented across the industry in response to the spread of the Covid-19 disease may result in delayed submission of some comment letters, and said it will not take final action on a selection of planned rule changes before April 24 to give commenters more time to respond.

SS&C to Buy Data Digitization Specialist Captricity

SS&C Technologies is to acquire Captricity, an Oakland, Calif.-based provider of machine-learning solutions for transforming handwritten and printed documents into digital content. Captricity’s Vidado technology is used by the financial services, insurance, pharmaceutical, and healthcare industries to automate paper-to-digital data extraction. Full terms of the deal were not disclosed, but SS&C will absorb Captricity’s 30 staff, based in Oakland, Boulder, Colo., and New York.

TRG Screen Adds B-Pipe Notifications to PEAR

TRG Screen has added Bloomberg Enterprise Data notifications relating to Bloomberg’s B-Pipe real-time datafeed to the Vendor Notifications segment of TRG’s PEAR exchange data license compliance database, enabling PEAR users who are B-Pipe clients to manage Bloomberg notifications centrally alongside those from other vendors, for greater efficiency.

The integration allows users to run and save reports relating to Bloomberg data, and links the notifications to other exchange announcements managed in PEAR, while also linking to TRG’s Application Compliance Tool that lists applications impacted by a notification and sends details to the application owner within a firm.

Refinitiv Takes Stake in ModuleQ for Microsoft Data Integration

Refinitiv, the former Financial & Risk division of Thomson Reuters, has made an undisclosed investment in ModuleQ, a Cupertino, Calif.-based provider of Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Teams integration tools, to make Refinitiv data available directly within users workflow tools, outside of dedicated data systems. ModuleQ’s app predicts users’ priorities while working in Microsoft Teams, and presents relevant data, news, and analytics in real-time, leveraging Refinitiv Intelligent Tagging and the Refinitiv Knowledge Graph. Potential datasets covered by the agreement include aftermarket research and company profiles.

The vendors have worked together since 2018 to provide tailored insights via the ModuleQ app.

Rimes, Soteria Integrate Compliance Tools

Benchmark and index data management provider Rimes has completed the first phase of integrating technology from London-based communications compliance and surveillance platform vendor Soteria to provide data-driven market manipulation and insider-dealer detection capabilities. The Rimes RegFocus Market Surveillance service identifies suspicious behaviors and patterns, which can now be investigated using Soteria’s real-time communications capture and surveillance tools covering audio, video, and electronic communications.