ResearchPool has teamed up with ADDFIN to expand its buy-side client base ahead of MiFID II and unbundling requirements.

Both firms have combined their web-based information and transaction platform and investment research services, providing ADDFIN’s buy-side community with access to ResearchPool’s investment research.

The agreement is effective immediately to users of ADDFINWEALTH Professional. Investors will gain access to over 160 research providers and 300,000 research papers available through ResearchPool.

The service is a new method of accessing research and was developed in response to MiFID II’s unbundling rules, set to come into force on 3 January 2018.

Pedro Fernandes, co-founder and CEO of ResearchPool, commented: “Access to all categories of investment research in a transparent and efficient way, meets the ADDFIN’s objective to give wealth managers the opportunity to process within each decision-making step with the best financial industry standard.”

Peter Hegglin, CEO at ADDFIN, added the partnership illustrates “our innovative and Fintech approach to meet the needs of professional investor community.”

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The Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has signed an agreement with the UK’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL) for precise time synchronisation ahead of MiFID II.

NPL will provide the exchange operator with a certified time signal traceable to coordinated universal time for trade timestamping, latency monitoring and synchronisation.

MiFID II - due to come into force on 3 January 2018 - requires financial institutions to achieve up to 100-microsecond level traceability of all trading events.

Dr Leon Lobo, strategic business development manager at NPL, explained timing is everything in today’s markets.

“High-frequency trading represents around 30% of UK trades and 50% in the US – precise timing offers competitive advantage. Current systems rely on GPS which is vulnerable to jamming and other interferences and uses equipment that can be inaccurate,” he said.

NPL describes itself as the ‘home of atomic time’ and it operates one of the world’s most accurate atomic clocks, which is accurate to one second every 158 million years.

In August last year, UBS deployed NPL’s time accuracy technology for regulatory time synchronisation reporting requirements under MiFID II.

Global co-head of equity electronic agency trading at UBS, Chris McConville, said at the time it would “provide UBS infrastructure with a stable, accurate and resilient time signal, whilst simplifying the MiFID II time synchronisation traceability requirements.”

Lobo concluded MiFID II continues to put pressure on firms to comply with the new standards for timing to prevent market disruption. 

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Bondecosystem and TransFICC have teamed up to develop a connectivity service providing low-latency execution and connectivity to electronic fixed income venues.

The partnership combines Bondecosystem’s connectivity services and TransFICC’s e-trading software to support faster data input.

Bondecosystem is currently part of the FXecosystem and has presence within the Equinix datacentres in London, New York, Hong Kong and Singapore.

TransFICC’s application programming interface (API) allows market data throughput and connectivity to new fixed income and derivatives liquidity venues.

Steve Toland, Founder of TransFICC, explained working with Bondecosystem has allowed the firm to provide a faster connection to their clients’ chosen trading venues.

“We are now testing production software in Equinix with both buy-side and sell-side organisations, conducting performance tuning with testing and live monitoring capability,” he added.

Last month, TransFICC teamed up with IPC to provide 6,000 fixed income participants with access to multiple electronic venues.

IPC’s network combined with TransFICC’s application programming interface (API) to allow market data throughput and connectivity to new fixed income and derivatives liquidity venues.

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Sapient Global Markets has launched its Client Connect tool as a fully managed service for buy-side firms that no longer want to run certain functions in-house.

Client Connect provides investment management firms with automated, cloud-based and software services for reporting, marketing, data and content management.

The tool aims to help asset managers reduce costs through a combination of analytics, CMS and CRM tools, making it easier to connect with prospects and clients and retain investor assets.

Sapient noted the asset management industry is ‘transforming’ due to increased competition for assets, more focus on long-term cost management and demanding compliance requirements.

Jarlath Forde, vice president at Sapient Global Markets, explained asset managers are now assessing digital technologies to automate processes, “reducing manual processes, improving time to market and increasing their ability to respond to client demands.”

He added: “Client Connect helps firms evolve from being focused on the production of obligatory collateral to assets that differentiate them in the marketplace, distributing insights, identifying and attracting prospects.”

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Several technology firms have teamed up to develop a tool that has reduced ‘tick-to-trade’ latency from 250 nanoseconds to just 120 nanoseconds.

SolarFlare, Xilinx and LDA Technologies explained the reduction in latency improves the queue positions of trades and increases the probability of trades being executed.

The joint service consists of one Solarflare software-defined NIC managing multiple Xilinx Kintex UltraScale FPGAs running LDA Lightspeed TCP core.

Ahmet Houssein, vice president of marketing at Solarflare, explained seizing opportunities lasting only a fraction of seconds is a mission for electronic trading operations.

“Who wins and who loses is determined by how fast a trader can digest a market feed and place orders,” he said.

Solarflare explained its benchmark for network performance is tick-to-trade latency, which is the time interval between receiving a market tick showing an opportunity to an algorithm, and sending the buy/sell order.

Manoj Roge, director of data center strategy and marketing at Xilinx, explained Xilinx UltraScale FPGAs provide the highest frequency and lowest latency reprogrammable platforms, and are ideal for high-frequency trading applications.

“The results achieved by Solarflare and LDA using these devices clearly demonstrate this value.”

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Charles River Development has deployed OTAS Technologies’ equity trading analytics to its portfolio management, order and execution management system.

The addition will make OTAS’s trade analytics available as a separately licensed add-on to the Charles River investment management tool.

Lee Garf, vice president of product management at Charles River, described OTAS’s analytics as a ‘real alpha generator’.

“It gives portfolio managers and traders real-time access to the best market intelligence and improves communication throughout the front office,” he explained.

Tom Doris, CEO at OTAS, added incorporating analytics into the portfolio management and trading workflows provides actionable signals to support instant decision making.

“This provides constant insight into what’s happening with trades, which improves both transparency and productivity for buy-side firms,” he said.

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JP Morgan has become the latest participant to withdraw from blockchain consortium R3.

Charley Cooper, a managing director at R3, confirmed the departure of one of the group’s founding members.

"JP Morgan parted ways with R3 to pursue a very distinct technology path which is at odds with the one chosen by the global financial services industry, represented by our 80-plus members," said Cooper.

JP Morgan declined to comment.

R3 was founded in 2014 by nine banks including Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, JP Morgan and others with the goal of applying blockchain technology to commercial markets.

The group was hit by a number of high profile departures at the end of 2016 starting with the exit of founding member Goldman Sachs.

It is thought Goldman Sachs did not renew its membership as R3’s intentions no longer aligned with the bank’s technology strategy.

Santander also confirmed its departure the following day while reports suggested Morgan Stanley also left the group.

R3 responded to these departures by adding Dutch bank ABN AMRO, Cincinnati based Fifth Third Bank, insurance provider Suncorp Group and financial services company Synchrony Financial to the group.

In March, the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation became the first US state-level regulator to join.

Speaking following the initial exodus, Nick Weisfeld, data practice head and blockchain specialist at GFT, put the departures down to the commercials of the business model rather than issues with blockchain technology.

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Calypso Technology has teamed up with blockchain consortium R3 to provide five financial institutions with trade matching services.

The service integrates Calypso’s cloud application and R3’s blockchain powered Corda platform to carry out real-time trade matching tests across four time zones.

Westpac Banking Corporation in Sydney, ING in Amsterdam, BBVA in Madrid, Banco de Credito del Peru in Lima and a large investment management firm in US all participated in the project.

The institutions used a node on the Corda platform to enter FX trades to validate and confirm matching in real-time, Calypso said. 

Todd McDonald, co-founder at R3, explained the test “is a perfect example of its ability to meet banking requirements in areas such as identity, privacy, security and scalability.”

Victor Gamero, an FX trader at Banco de Credito del Peru, added: “Beyond the obvious gain that this new matching methodology provides, we were very impressed by the mitigation of operational risks.”

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Nasdaq has launched a venture investment program dedicated to discovering, investing in and partnering with FinTech companies.

Known as Nasdaq Ventures, the program will focus initially on blockchain technology, machine learning, artificial intelligence, big data and analytics.

The exchange group said its main objective is to identify and collaborate on new technologies and services which align with Nasdaq’s clients needs.

A former managing director at Morgan Stanley, Gary Offner, will lead Nasdaq Ventures and he will report to head of corporate strategy, Jean-Jacques Louis.

Minority stake investments made by the program are expected to range from less than $1 million to approximately $10 million, Nasdaq said. 

Adena Friedman, CEO at Nasdaq, explained the launch reflects the exchange operator’s focus on “driving growth and innovation by evaluating, distributing, licensing and integrating disruptive technologies for the long-term benefit of our global clients.”

Nasdaq said the investment program began unofficially in late 2015 and has since partnered with a blockchain infrastructure provider, a machine intelligence company and a real-time analytics firm.

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FlexTrade Systems has launched an augmented trading application, known as FlexAR, for its execution management system (EMS).

The technology will provide an interactive order blotter, trade ticket and charting in the virtual space.

Traders will be able to see and interact with the markets in a completely unique manner, FlexTrade said.

FlexAR will also introduce interactive alerting and three-dimensional basket visualisation alongside its FlexTRADER blotter tool.

The firm said it had initially explored virtual reality trading, but the feedback was that fully immersive headsets were too overwhelming and shut-off real-world events.

“With the advent of the ‘Microsoft HoloLens’ augmented reality headset, we found a good middle ground, bringing virtual trading into the real world,” said Andy Mahoney, business development director at FlexTrade.

He added: “With consumer technology evolving at such a rapid pace, we are constantly on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve trading.”

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