This Week: Turquoise, OpenFin & FlexTrade; Anna, FTSE Russell, and more

LSEG’s Turquoise Plato teams up with OpenFin, FlexTrade

The London Stock Exchange Group’s Turquoise Plato is connecting to interop vendor OpenFin in response to the industry need for workflow efficiencies, application interoperability, and a more unified desktop experience for the buy-side and member firm users. Turquoise and Turquoise Europe are the first trading venues to connect to OpenFin.

Turquoise on OpenFin delivers a datafeed directly into trader workflows to support liquidity discovery and decision-making processes. The API passes FDC3-compliant Context objects and makes use of OpenFin’s message bus to pass that data to OpenFin-enabled applications, including visualization tools, and in-house and third-party applications.

FlexTrade Systems will be the first to deliver the Turquoise datafeed into their flagship execution management system via the OpenFin message bus. Traders can then act on that data, take advantage of emerging liquidity opportunities, and interact with visualization capabilities on block trading activity from Turquoise Plato Order Books.

Anna Service Bureau gets tech face-lift

The Association of National Numbering Agencies (Anna), a global association dedicated to the support of efficient capital markets using ISO standards, released a modernized Anna Service Bureau (ASB). Among the technology and infrastructure enhancements that will benefit both numbering agencies and ASB clients are: streamlined data processing, improved communication between contributors, a new look and feel for the user interface, and additional data elements related to the 2020 revision of the Isin [International Securities Identification Number] ISO 6166 standard.

Key changes include the migration of the platform to a cloud-based infrastructure (with dual instances for redundancy purposes) allowing for reduced latency and additional security. A new user interface will be introduced with an integrated data quality dashboard, a data challenge ticketing system and enhanced search and download capabilities. This will allow for more streamlined data processing, increased transparency and improved communication between the NNA contributors, and the ability to undertake improved data analytics. An additional subscription service will also become available, giving users the ability to extract customized data for a specific portfolio of financial instruments.

There are two planned phases of enhancement to the ASB. The first phase, which was rolled out on September 18, includes infrastructure changes to the ASB. This will be followed by a further phase in 2022 to introduce new data elements resulting from the 2020 revision of the ISO 6166 Isin standard, including the associated data validations, as well as incorporation into the relevant Isin look-up and subscription services.

VoxSmart releases Telegram Capture to broaden mobile Capture suite

Communications surveillance start-up VoxSmart released Telegram Capture, a cloud-based application that can record text, including self-destructing messages, rich media, images, and attachments sent on the privacy-centric app Telegram through iOS and Android devices.

The new product is similar to its WhatsApp Capture application, and VoxSmart has plans to roll out further services for Signal and Microsoft Teams.

FTSE Russell introduces thematic indexes for global technology sector

Global index provider FTSE Russell has launched a comprehensive range of technology-focused, thematic indexes based on universes including the FTSE Global All Cap, Russell 3000, FTSE All-Share Ex Investment Trusts, and FTSE AIM All-Share.

Investors can gain broad exposure to multiple technology themes through the new FTSE Global Technology SuperTheme Index, or via more targeted single theme benchmarks such as the FTSE Global Artificial Intelligence Index, FTSE Global Robotics & Automation Index, or the FTSE Global Fintech & Blockchain Index.

FTSE Russell’s index methodology is driven by its Dynamic Classification Algorithm, which utilizes natural language processing (NLP) techniques for its new thematic range. A dynamic approach is used to help identify and select companies with exposure to specific themes. The algorithm will use a set of keywords, which may be updated with the development of the theme over time, to discover relevant companies by screening a variety of unstructured content, such as company descriptions.

Globally, thematic assets under management has exceeded $600 billion, with a 5-year annual growth rate of 50%. ETFs and open-ended active funds account for most of this growth, with technology related funds now accounting for half of total thematic assets under management.

The FTSE Global Technology SuperTheme Index has delivered a cumulative 5-year return of 271%, with single themes such as the FTSE Global Artificial Intelligence Index achieving a 42.9% return over the last year.

Euronext and Qomply partner on regulatory reporting service

Transaction reporting firm Qomply and pan-European exchange group Euronext have linked services to provide clients with a regulatory reporting solution without the cost and complications of integrating separate services.

Users of Qomply benefit from a streamlined process that accepts trade data, performs a matrix of over 1,000 rules for accuracy and validity, and sends the transaction data to Euronext Arm for timely delivery to the regulator. Users can tease out any issues with their trade reporting before sending it to the Euronext Arm. This service is unique in that users control when and if trades are sent to the Arm.

InvestX receives strategic investments from Jefferies, Virtu Financial, and Canaccord Genuity

InvestX Capital, a private market secondaries platform founded in 2014, has secured a strategic investment from Jefferies Financial Group, Virtu Financial, and Canaccord Genuity Group.

The new funding will allow InvestX to further advance its technology platform, increase back-office integration and expand its team. Doug Cifu, CEO of Virtu, and Kieran Mara, vice president in Jefferies’ Merchant Bank, will join the InvestX board.

In February of this year, the company launched InvestX Gem, which is representative of this high-growth asset class. This comes on the heels of the launch of the InvestX’s US headquarters in New York City and the additions of several senior industry executives, including managing director Brian Schaeffer, CTO Colin Wrinch, director of sales Jon Eckhard, and VP of people and culture Nicole Liddell.