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Sunday, December 1, 2024
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ON THE MOVE: Walt Bettinger to Retire from Schwab; Jacek Bugaj Joins Prometheum

By
Anna Lyudvig
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Walt Bettinger

Walt Bettinger has notified the Board of Directors of the The Charles Schwab Corporation of his intention to retire as Chief Executive Officer effective December 31, 2024. Rick Wurster, President of Schwab since 2021, will be named President and CEO and will join the Schwab Board of Directors, effective January 1, 2025. Bettinger will continue to serve as Executive Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors, along with founder Charles R. Schwab. Bettinger has successfully led Schwab as CEO since late 2008.

Jacek Bugaj

Jacek Bugaj has been appointed Head of Product at Prometheum. With over two decades of experience in capital markets and fintech, Bugaj most recently served as Head of Macro Product Management at Two Sigma, where he led the creation of advanced financial systems supporting systematic and discretionary trading strategies. He also spent over eight years at IHS Markit and OSTTRA, where he designed and implemented financial infrastructure and workflows that supported a significant portion of global financial transactions.

Gurbir S. Grewal

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced that Gurbir S. Grewal, Director of the Division of Enforcement, will depart the agency, effective October 11, 2024. Upon his departure, Sanjay Wadhwa, the Division’s Deputy Director, will serve as Acting Director, and Sam Waldon, the Division’s Chief Counsel, will serve as Acting Deputy Director. Wadhwa has served as Deputy Director of the Enforcement Division since August 2021. Waldon has served as Chief Counsel for the Division of Enforcement since March 2022. 

Trading Technologies International, a global capital markets technology platform provider, has created a Platform Services business unit, bringing together the company’s global Product Development and Services teams into a single group. Jason Shaffer has assumed the new role of Chief Platform Officer with responsibility for leading the newly integrated unit. Vasco Sousa, who has served as Chief Services Officer for nearly two years, helping develop the services team and processes, left TT at the end of September to pursue new opportunities.

State Street Corporation has appointed Vanessa Fernandes as head of Digital Asset Solutions. Fernandes, who will be based in New Jersey, will report directly to Donna Milrod, chief product officer at State Street. She has more than 25 years of financial services experience in technology and operations. Prior to joining State Street, Fernandes was Managing Director and Global Head of Digital Experience at BNY Mellon, where she developed a digital-first strategy to transform the bank’s products and platforms. She also held several senior leadership roles at Itaú Unibanco, including Chief Information Officer, Chief Technology Officer for Emerging Technologies, Global Head of Corporate Architecture, and Chief Executive Officer of Digital Assets.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has appointed Andrea Gibbons as Managing Director, Chief Human Resources Officer. Gibbons will join the DTCC Executive Committee and report to Francis (Frank) La Salla, DTCC’s President, Chief Executive Officer and Director. She replaces Anthony Portannese, who will serve as a strategic advisor to DTCC’s President and CEO, Frank La Salla, until he retires at the end of the year. Gibbons has served as a key member of DTCC’s HR leadership team for the past decade, where she consistently demonstrated the qualities of an enterprise leader and brought experience and a deep understanding of the firm’s organizational culture and values.

If you have a new job or promotion to report, let me know at alyudvig@marketsmedia.com

MEMX Options Market Share Tops 3%

By
Press Release
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Jonathan Kellner, MEMX

MEMX, a technology-driven exchange operator founded by members to benefit all investors, reached over 3% total options market share and 6.1% regular electronic options market share in September 2024, coinciding with the one-year anniversary of the exchange.

Underscoring the strength of the offering, MEMX Option’s market share more than doubled since May of 2024 in the continuous trading single-leg equity and ETF options category in which the exchange operates.

“Since its launch, MEMX Options has redefined trading dynamics, offering unprecedented opportunities and efficiencies for participants,” said MEMX CEO Jonathan Kellner. “We are proud to celebrate this pivotal moment with our partners, clients, and dedicated team members who have been integral to this journey. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with our diverse group of options and equities member firms to find new ways to grow and improve participant experiences on MEMX exchanges.”

MEMX Options first year of operation milestones for September 2024 include:

  • 33 member firms contributing diverse customer and non-customer order flow.
  • SPY regular electronic market share of 5.8%. Ranked #2 out of 18 exchanges in quote performance. SPY consistently accounts for ~18% of total options contract volume.
  • Regular electronic market share of 5.8% in penny underlyings. Ranked #3 out of 18 exchanges in quote performance.
  • Regular electronic market share of 9.9% in non-penny underlyings. Ranked #3 out of 18 exchanges in quote performance.

The decision to launch MEMX Options was driven by MEMX’s successful track record of delivering value to market participants through its equities exchange. MEMX is committed to continuing to evolve and grow over the coming years to meet the demand across the trading community by leveraging the strengths of MEMX’s state-of-the-art trading technology.

Source: MEMX

Team Players: STA Women in Finance Symposium Celebrates Mentorship, Collaboration and Paying It Forward

By
STA
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Christine Lee, Liquidnet

By Christine Lee, Liquidnet

2024 STA WIF Vice Chair

Thank you to all who attended the 9th Annual STA Women in Finance Symposium in Orlando! Taking place immediately ahead of STA’s 91st Annual Market Structure Conference, it was an ideal way to kick off three days of great discussion and meaningful networking opportunities. Attendees had a chance to reflect on the challenges and opportunities women face in financial services and hear from industry trailblazers who have set an example for all who will follow.

First, we celebrated the importance of mentorship with a presentation of STA’s 2024 Woman Mentor of the Year Award to Patty Schuler, Senior Vice President of Business Development at BOX Options Market. Patty was introduced by her longtime STA Chicago colleague Lauren Arbid, Director, U.S. Head of Relationship Management at ABN AMRO Clearing. As we heard during her talk, Patty has long made it a priority to advocate for and share her knowledge with other women in the workplace – a result of lessons learned early in her career.

“Back when I was on the floor, it was a heavily male-dominated industry,” Patty said. “I had to fight to make a place for myself. I listened to the wisdom of the women around me – ‘Do your best, treat others with respect and prove yourself when it matters most.’ I carry that with me to this day.”

Patty also encouraged her fellow female professionals, particularly those who have benefited from mentorship in their careers, to pass on the legacy. We can all do our part to continue the industry’s progress in becoming more diverse and inclusive – and engaging closely with those who are following in our footsteps is one of the most meaningful ways.

“I truly believe that mentoring is about passing on your knowledge and legacy to the next generation,” Patty said. “The best way to thank a mentor is to pay it forward and become a mentor yourself. We must all remember to thank those who have made a difference in our lives.”

Next, attendees heard from Ashley Banfield, Co-Head, Global Execution Strategy at Fidelity Investments, who served as the Symposium’s keynote speaker, and was interviewed by Rebecca Lahar, Vice President, Equity Trader at T. Rowe Price. Ashley’s story was a great example of what it looks like to absorb every lesson life has to offer and take advantage of every opportunity to forge a successful career. In particular, she highlighted how her parents helped define her approach to work and life.

“My parents taught me that education was going to be my life’s greatest equalizer,” Ashley said. “They also taught me to surround myself will people that were better than me. The only way you get better is by playing with better people – and that is true everywhere. When I look across our team, I think we’ve done that really well.”

Ashley also stressed the importance of sports in her upbringing, sharing how they informed her perspective on teamwork, preparation and focus.

“While it’s not a necessary part of being successful, there’s so much you learn from playing sports and being part of a team,” she said. “When my dad brought my brother and I to play hockey and they said that my brother could play but I couldn’t, my dad said, ‘We can do this the easy way or the hard way.’ It was my first mini women’s march, and it was alongside the two most important men in my life: my dad and my brother.”

These perspectives were exactly what we needed to hear heading into the conference – and they align perfectly with the goals of STA Women in Finance. Of course, many of us in attendance compete with one another, and the many issues discussed during the conference program can be complex and stressful. But at the same time, we are all on the same team, and on the same mission to leave this industry better than we found it. In this shifting landscape, Patty and Ashley remind us of what it really means to be a team player.

FactSet Launches Data as a Service

By
Press Release
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John Costigan, FactSet

FACTSET LAUNCHES DATA AS A SERVICE TO STREAMLINE DATA MANAGEMENT IN FINANCIAL SERVICES

NORWALK, Conn., October 3, 2024 – FactSet, a global financial digital platform and enterprise solutions provider, today announced the launch of its new Data as a Service (DaaS) solution that provides data collection, management, and integration to data management teams at financial institutions.

FactSet DaaS is a suite of services that empowers data operations, architecture, and governance professionals to efficiently source and manage data in a way that powers critical firm objectives, delivers high-quality data to internal stakeholders, and manages associated costs across the data management process.

Data professionals spend a significant amount of time ingesting, quality-checking, mapping, transforming, enriching, delivering, and monitoring data across the data pipeline. Often collecting data from disparate datasets using different identifiers, companies face challenges making that data work together and moving it quickly through the pipeline to the final user.

Connecting, manipulating, and transforming these disparate datasets into the appropriate formats using FactSet DaaS allows data teams to cost-effectively manage and simplify this time and resource-intensive process.

“Our clients, ranging from institutional asset managers to data providers, spend a considerable amount of effort and expense configuring data to drive decision-making and achieve their strategic business objectives,” said John Costigan, FactSet’s Chief Data Officer. “FactSet DaaS allow data professionals to centralize all types of datasets on a single platform, removing friction, accelerating data flow, and reducing error risk, so that businesses can realize maximum ROI for their stakeholders.”

FactSet is committed to solving the challenges faced by data management teams by seamlessly integrating not only FactSet-owned and sourced data, but also clients’ proprietary and third-party data.

FactSet DaaS includes:

  • Data Quality & Completeness Service: Prevents downstream data issues by conducting a series of quality checks to verify completeness before data moves through the pipeline.
  • Managed Cross-Reference Service: Maps all identifiers from various datasets to a unified symbology model, allowing data to be called upon effectively and verifying different datasets can be connected to power downstream processes and applications.
  • Managed Custom Query Service: Transforms data to meet its intended end use case by defining the desired data output with automated processes.

FactSet DaaS solution sources and ingests data on a clients’ behalf, executing processes, and delivering the data precisely according to each firms’ requirements. This comprehensive, end-to-end approach enhances efficiency and streamlines the entire data pipeline for users, enabling them to focus on more strategic, high-value initiatives that drive business growth.

With more than four decades of industry-leading data expertise, FactSet’s open ecosystem and deep understanding of the data pipeline enable users to continuously integrate data into critical workflow applications, such as Order Management Systems (OMS), Enterprise Data Management Platforms (EDM), and Risk and Accounting Systems to further enhance their own solutions and optimize workflows.

FactSet DaaS is part of the growing Managed Services by FactSet. To learn more about FactSet DaaS solutions, please visit: https://www.factset.com/marketplace/catalog/product/factset-data-as-a-service-daas

About FactSet

FactSet (NYSE:FDS | NASDAQ:FDS) helps the financial community to see more, think bigger, and work better. Our digital platform and enterprise solutions deliver financial data, analytics, and open technology to nearly 8,200 global clients, including over 216,000 individual users. Clients across the buy-side and sell-side as well as wealth managers, private equity firms, and corporations achieve more every day with our comprehensive and connected content, flexible next-generation workflow solutions, and client-centric specialized support. As a member of the S&P 500, we are committed to sustainable growth and have been recognized amongst the Best Places to Work in 2023 by Glassdoor as a Glassdoor Employees’ Choice Award winner. Learn more at www.factset.com and follow us on X and LinkedIn.

FLASH FRIDAY: SEC Takes Page from Corporate Marketing Playbook

By
Editorial Staff
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FLASH FRIDAY is a weekly content series looking at the past, present and future of capital markets trading and technology. FLASH FRIDAY is sponsored by Instinet, a Nomura company.

Industry conferences are an opportune time for attending companies to announce news.

Lots of clients and prospective clients are gathered under the same roof — with good vibes, a nice venue, and cocktails — to talk shop. So why not shoehorn your new product, splashy hire or latest M&A transaction into that shop talk? 

At Traders Magazine and other Markets Media Group publications, we often see this dynamic at play with sponsored content, as brokerage firms and technology providers want the extra visibility of publishing on the first or second day of an industry conference. 

It may have been just happenstance, but it sure seemed that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission took a page from this corporate marketing playbook when it dropped its long-awaited second shoe on tick sizes and access fee caps early on Wednesday, Sept. 18 – which just happened to be opening day of the Security Traders Association’s annual market structure conference, probably the year’s biggest US equity and options gathering.

[You could almost hear SEC Chair Gary Gensler over the intercom at the JW Marriott Grande Lakes: “Gooooooood morning Orlando!”]

The SEC’s announcement changed the tenor of the conference, at least from a content perspective. While regulation figured to be a prominent topic of discussion going in, it became even more front/center.  

For example, a Sept. 18 afternoon panel that was meant to be about the impact of innovation and regulation generally on exchanges, alternative trading systems and broker-dealers, pivoted on the fly to a discussion exclusively about the SEC’s new rules. 

In what the panel called a seminal and historic day for market structure, the SEC reduced the minimum tick size for certain NMS stocks from 1 cent to 0.5 cents; reduced the maximum exchange access fee from $0.003 per share to $0.001 per share; increased transparency requirements of exchange fees and rebates; and expedited the reduction of round-lot sizes for high-priced stocks. 

Panelists expressed concerns that the new rules will damage liquidity, which ultimately would be costly for the end user investors the SEC is tasked to protect. They said the reduction in access fees amounts to unwarranted price controls that will fragment liquidity; and the new rules in aggregate add up to more than the sum of their parts.

When asked about possible positive outcomes that may come from the new rules, the panel offered that tick sizes are important, and if they’re set at the correct level that can improve trading efficiency. Also, there will be innovation as market participants and infrastructure providers adapt to the new rules.

Overall, despite the nearly 90-degree sunny, humid weather in Orlando, the SEC’s new rules received a decidedly cold welcome at STA. At times it felt a bit one-notey – this was corroborated by one brokerage veteran, who on a Sept. 20 flight back to Newark, said there was “too much blasting of the SEC” in the panel sessions.

But the SEC knows it isn’t winning any popularity contests. If the regulator’s goal was to capture the most industry eyeballs and eardrums two weeks ago, that mission was accomplished.     

BestEx Research Launches Order Aggregation Functionality 

By
Anna Lyudvig
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Multiple orders for the same symbol and side sent at different times for different accounts or portfolios is a common challenge across firms globally, according to Nigam Saraiya, Chief Product Officer at BestEx Research Group.

Nigam Saraiya

“It is not unique to any one region, market, or firm,” he told Traders Magazine.

To address this issue, BestEx Research Group, an independent provider of high-performance algorithmic execution and measurement solutions for equities and futures trading, has recently launched Order Aggregation functionality within its execution algorithms. 

“Order aggregation tackles this seamlessly for the customer with zero disruption to their workflow,” commented Saraiya.

“Every element of our product design is intended to improve either trading costs or the workflow–or both–as in the case of order aggregation,” he said.

Saraiya said that order aggregation increases the efficiency of algorithms’ scheduling, order placement, and liquidity-seeking behavior by combining parent orders on the same symbol and side, which ultimately reduces clients’ trading costs. 

Execution of multiple parent orders for the same instrument–sent at the same time or different times–often results in higher trading costs due to faster than optimal execution speeds, suboptimal limit order placement, and missed block trading opportunities in fragmented markets, he added. 

BestEx Research’s Order Aggregation addresses this challenge by consolidating orders on the same side of the market, optimizing algorithm performance and reducing trading costs. 

According to Saraiya, clients can opt in to this feature without altering their workflow, and fills will be allocated back to each parent order in real time–even though BestEx Research algorithms are trading them as a single block order. 

Additionally, institutions managing parent orders from different portfolios arriving at various times can use this functionality to meet regulatory and compliance requirements, ensuring fair and equitable fills across all portfolios without the need to develop complex order aggregation capabilities within their OMS. 

BestEx Research’s pro-rata fill allocation ensures that each parent order, even those belonging to different accounts, is fairly treated. 

Order aggregation functionality is particularly relevant for trading desks that deal with large, complex orders and want to ensure fair allocation without disrupting compliance workflows.

Nordea Asset Management was among the first to put the new functionality into action.

Eugene Seo

“For us, order aggregation is an absolutely essential feature,” Eugene Seo, Head of Equity Trading at Nordea Asset Management, said.

“It is necessary that multiple orders in the same security do not compete against each other but instead are aggregated and represented as a singular order in the market. Aggregating them helps us reduce signaling risk and ensures fair volume distribution across working orders,” he told Traders Magazine. 

Additionally, aggregation functionality ensures that volumes are distributed on a pro-rata basis across working orders so that their investment teams are being represented fairly, he said.

“It ensures volumes are distributed on a pro-rata basis, so our investment teams are represented fairly,” Seo added.

Seo believes that Order Aggregation is important not just for reducing impact but also for seeking block liquidity, since aggregated orders can become eligible to trade against larger orders with significant minimum quantities. 

“Given our large average order size, our reliance is on conditional order types to achieve volume through larger and less predictable fills,” he said.

Order Aggregation can be configured upon request to meet the specific needs of BestEx Research clients. 

Both the eligibility requirements for aggregation and the fill attribution process are customizable to suit different workflows and preferences. Sell-side firms utilizing BestEx Research’s AMS can selectively offer this functionality to their buy-side clients, tailoring the criteria to meet each client’s needs.

Interactive Brokers Introduces Forecast Contracts on Election Outcomes

By
Press Release
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Thomas Peterffy, Interactive Brokers


Empowering Investors to Hedge Against Political Volatility

GREENWICH, CT, October 3, 2024 —  Interactive Brokers (Nasdaq: IBKR), an automated global electronic broker, today announced the planned launch of Forecast Contracts on upcoming US election results. This innovative addition allows US investors to trade their predictions on US political outcomes, alongside contracts on economic data releases and climate indicators, through the ForecastEx exchange. Forecast Contracts on US election results will begin trading on October 3 at 5:15 pm ET.

With the introduction of election-focused contracts, investors now have a powerful tool to manage portfolio risks tied to political uncertainty, while also expressing their views on key global events. By trading Forecast Contracts, investors can protect their portfolios from election-driven market movements or capitalize on their political insights.

The following Forecast Contracts on US election results will be available at launch:

  • Will Kamala Harris win the US Presidential Election in 2024?
  • Will Donald Trump win the US Presidential Election in 2024?
  • Will the Democratic Party win a majority in the United States House of Representatives in the 2024 general election?
  • Will the Democratic Party win a majority in the United States Senate during the 2024 general election?
  • Will Kari Lake (R) win Arizona’s United States Senate election in 2024?
  • Will Mike Rogers (R) win Michigan’s United States Senate election in 2024?
  • Will Tim Sheehy (R) win Montana’s United States Senate election in 2024?
  • Will Sam Brown (R) win Nevada’s United States Senate election in 2024?
  • Will Bernie Moreno (R) win Ohio’s United States Senate election in 2024?
  • Will Dave McCormick (R) win Pennsylvania’s United States Senate election in 2024?
  • Will Eric Hovde (R) win Wisconsin’s United States Senate election in 2024?

These contracts offer investors an easy way to take a position on key political events. For example, if an investor believes the United States Senate will be under Democrat control in 2025, they can purchase a “yes” contract. Conversely, if they believe the event will not occur, they can buy a “no” contract. Contract prices range from $0.02 to $0.99, reflecting the market’s evolving consensus on the likelihood of each outcome. E.g. $0.35 corresponds to 35% probability.

Thomas Peterffy, Founder and Chairman of Interactive Brokers, remarked, “Forecast Contracts allow investors to act on the most crucial issues shaping our future. These contracts give traders a direct line to market sentiment on elections, helping them manage risk or express views on political events.”

Benefits of Forecast Contracts:

  • Hedging Against Uncertainty: Safeguarding portfolios from election-related volatility.
  • Profiting from Insights: Turning political knowledge into financial opportunity.
  • Trading with Ease: Accessing these new contracts through IBKR ForecastTrader, using an existing Interactive Brokers login.
  • Earning an Incentive: Earn an incentive coupon, paid monthly, on the daily closing value of a position. Currently 4.33% APY.

Forecast Contracts settle at a predefined value based on the event’s outcome — $1 for a correct prediction and $0 for an incorrect one — offering investors a simple, transparent way to engage with political and economic events. Forecast Contracts on US election results are only available to eligible US residents.

Interactive Brokers plans to expand ForecastEx globally, covering a broader range of election events and other major issues. This strategic offering strengthens Interactive Brokers’ position as a leader in innovative financial products, giving investors a new edge in navigating politically uncertain markets. The CFTC-regulated ForecastEx LLC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Interactive Brokers.

To learn more, visit IBKR ForecastTrader to start trading political predictions and protect portfolios from market swings tied to election outcomes.

About Interactive Brokers Group, Inc.:
Interactive Brokers Group affiliates provide automated trade execution and custody of securities, commodities, and foreign exchange around the clock on over 150 markets in numerous countries and currencies, from a single unified platform to clients worldwide. We serve individual investors, hedge funds, proprietary trading groups, financial advisors and introducing brokers. Our four decades of focus on technology and automation has enabled us to equip our clients with a uniquely sophisticated platform to manage their investment portfolios. We strive to provide our clients with advantageous execution prices and trading, risk and portfolio management tools, research facilities and investment products, all at low or no cost, positioning them to achieve superior returns on investments. Interactive Brokers has consistently earned recognition as a top broker, garnering multiple awards and accolades from respected industry sources such as Barron’s, Investopedia, Stockbrokers.com, and many others.

Contacts for Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. Media: Katherine Ewert, media@ibkr.com 

Trading Technologies Establishes Platform Services Business Unit

By
Press Release
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Keith Todd, Trading Technologies

CHICAGO, October 3, 2024 — Trading Technologies International, Inc. (TT), a global capital markets technology platform provider, today announced the creation of a Platform Services business unit, bringing together the company’s global Product Development and Services teams into a single group. Jason Shaffer assumes the new role of Chief Platform Officer with responsibility for leading the newly integrated unit.

The move represents the final organization change following the establishment of six lines of business – Futures & Options, Fixed Income, FX, Data & Analytics, Compliance and QTS (Quantitative Trading Solutions) – at the start of the year.

TT CEO Keith Todd said: “TT is an enterprise platform business delivering its array of functionality to support capital markets trading firms. This business unit will provide the core platform on which the lines of business will build features and run all operational services. The platform, which has already handled more than 2.5 billion transactions in 2024, is the foundation of and accelerant for our current and future lines of business.”

Vasco Sousa, who has served as Chief Services Officer for nearly two years, helping develop the services team and processes, left TT at the end of September to pursue new opportunities.

About Trading Technologies

Trading Technologies (www.tradingtechnologies.com) is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) technology platform provider to the global capital markets industry. The company’s award-winning TT® platform connects to the world’s major international exchanges and liquidity venues in listed derivatives alongside a growing number of asset classes, including fixed income, foreign exchange (FX) and cryptocurrencies. The TT platform delivers advanced tools for trade execution and order management, market data solutions, analytics, trade surveillance, risk management, clearing, post-trade allocation and infrastructure services to the world’s leading sell-side institutions, buy-side firms and exchanges. The company’s blue-chip client base includes the Tier 1 banks as well as brokers, money managers, hedge funds, proprietary traders, Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs), commercial hedgers and risk managers. These firms rely on the TT ecosystem to manage their end-to-end trading operations. In addition, exchanges utilize TT’s technology to deliver innovative solutions to their market participants. TT also strategically partners with technology companies to make their complementary offerings available to Trading Technologies’ global client base through the TT ecosystem.

Corlytics Restructures and Expands US Operations 

By
Anna Lyudvig
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Corlytics, a global RegTech consolidator, has announced significant expansion and the appointment of a new leadership team across all major functions in the US market. 

John Byrne, CEO and founder of Corlytics, said: “We have restructured to create Corlytics Group, integrating our industry-leading regulatory and compliance intelligence businesses.” 

John Byrne

“Our major investment in the US reinforces North America as our key market. I am proud that we have grown our existing talented team and attracted a further A-team of seasoned professionals from top industry players to drive our ongoing leadership on the ground,” he said in a statement. 

The newly appointed US leadership team will be headed up by industry veteran, Aidan Houlihan formerly of Napier.ai and BNY Mellon with over 15 years in financial services. 

Other team members include Freddie Frith as VP of Sales North America, formerly Global Head of Sales at Clausematch; Lana Chan as Head of Customer Success North America, formerly head of customer success for North America at Fenergo; Chad Schaefer as Head of the Professional Services Team North America, formerly Global Head of Professional Services at Clausematch; Rory McGrath as Head of Product Consulting North America, formerly Head of PreSales EMEA; and Liam Cuddy as Senior Consultant North America, formerly Head of Sales North America for Fenergo.

This expansion builds on the momentum from the recent addition of three C-level executives: Steve Barnes as Group Technology Officer, Oisin Boydell as Chief Data Officer, and Ray O’Donnell as Chief Tech Architect. 

Following a significant investment from Verdane earlier this year for a majority equity stake in the company, Corlytics continues its ambitious growth trajectory following major acquisitions in the last 12 months, including Deloitte’s RegTech platform in May 2024, and ClauseMatch, and ING’s SPARQ in 2023. 

Since 2018, Corlytics has been a significant player in the US, working with 40% of the top 30 Systematically Important Financial Institutions (SIFI) globally. 

“Corlytics boasts over 100 clients globally spanning banking, insurance and payments solutions, having successfully grown to become the pre-eminent regulatory technology player in the market.  We are planning further innovative developments and acquisitions,” Houlihan commented.

“This will allow our clients and financial institutions globally, to have the most robust and compliant systems possible. Our plan is to go far beyond compliance and risk management to develop a deep understanding to use analytics as a business advantage,” he said.

Further ambitious growth is planned over the next two years, with the global RegTech market anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 23.6% between 2024-2032.

Since 2020 Corlytics has grown 60% per annum, predominantly driven by its core regulatory compliance products.

Corlytics management team forecasts double digit growth of approximately 35% CAGR through to 2028. 

Completely new products, content classes and additional acquisitions are expected to contribute further to growth by 2028.  

“The next 12 months at Corlytics will be transformative for the world’s largest financial services firms, enabling them to seamlessly comply with and implement ever-changing regulations,” Byrne said.

Bridgewise Unveils Conversational AI Investment Tool

By
Editorial Staff
-

Bridgewise, a capital markets intelligence platform, has launched BRIDGET, its Conversational AI Investment Tool, designed specifically for the institutional investment sector, including brokers and trading platforms.

Leveraging the flexibility, convenience, and capabilities of large language models (LLM) AI, BRIDGET transforms traditional investment intelligence reports into dynamic, interactive conversations, and provides regulatory-compliant investment recommendations that are delivered through its customizable, multilingual platform.

Gaby Diamant

“Bridgewise’s BRIDGET is a conversational AI investment tool that presents a significant leap forward for the global investment and securities industry. By integrating advanced AI with regulatory compliance, we are not only enhancing the efficiency and accuracy of investment decisions but also ensuring that these decisions are made within a secure and compliant framework,” said Gaby Diamant, Co-Founder and CEO of Bridgewise.

“This tool is a game-changer for financial institutions looking to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving sector, and to empower their analysts and investors to interact with data in a more intuitive and insightful manner, thereby enhancing decision-making processes,” he added.

In today’s fast-paced financial environment, analysts and investors face numerous challenges, including information overload, time constraints, and the need for precise, actionable insights.

Unlike other existing LLMs which may generate quirky and interesting responses but do not deliver reliable investment recommendations, Bridgewise’s BRIDGET offers regulatory-compliant investment insights, including specific buy/sell recommendations for stocks.

BRIDGET also addresses several key AI chat-related drawbacks, such as:

  • Lack of Opinions or Investment Recommendations: Competing AIs refrain from recommending one stock over another, while BRIDGETTM provides actionable, regulatory-compliant advice, including specific buy/sell recommendations.
  • Finance-Focused Expertise: Unlike general LLMs, BRIDGET uses a specialized Micro Language Model (MLM) tailored for conversations about investments and capital markets, offering a high level of expertise and precision.
  • Hallucinations: Other AIs often generate inaccurate or illogical suggestions, such as recommending non-existent stocks or those with poor fundamentals. BRIDGET is designed to overcome these pitfalls, ensuring reliability in its investment advice because its MLM has been exclusively trained to understand and address the nuances of investment-specific topics. 

Research has estimated that generative AI (Gen AI) could add between $200 billion and $340 billion in value annually, or 2.8 to 4.7 percent of total industry revenues across the global banking sector.

Against this high-growth potential, GenAI has emerged as a crucial enabler of innovation and transformation, empowering financial institutions to exceed the expectations of today’s sophisticated customers and investors, who are increasingly demanding faster, more convenient and timely services.

For the finance institutions who serve global and regional institutional investors, this expectation is arguably compounded by the dynamic and fast-changing as well as the cross-border regulatory compliance requirements. 

This expansion is part of Bridgewise’s vision to leverage its technology and AI intelligence capabilities to revolutionize how capital markets operate.

Bridgewise is currently available in more than 25 languages and across 15 markets and has a coverage of more than 50,000 global financial instruments.

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