US asset management firm Navient will acquire education finance company Earnest for $155 million in cash as it hunts out new markets. As part of Navient, Earnest will continue as a “distinct brand” and will be led by its current management team, including founders Louis Beryl and Ben Hutchinson. Navient says Earnest clients will continue […]
For those in employed in financial services, technology has always been important – integrated systems for operations and execution have been with us for decades. But to the banking customer at a High Street branch the advances in technology may not be obvious. However, slowly and surely innovations from the fintech sector are filtering down to the mass-market.
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is setting up an asset management authorisation hub to support start-ups entering the lively market. In a speech at the “FT Investment Management Summit Europe 2017”, Megan Butler, executive director of supervision – investment, wholesale and specialist, FCA, says the hub will help start-ups as they move between pre-authorisation […]
Abu Dhabi Investment Company (Invest AD) is implementing new treasury and asset management software from Calypso, front-to-back office.
State Street has launched its Quantextual Idea Lab, a hybrid of machine learning and human knowledge, for improved investment research. According to the firm, investment professionals are inundated with research reports from the sell side, the buy side and academia. It reckons financial research teams can produce enough content to consume 24 reams or 12,000 […]
FactSet, a US-based provider of financial information and analytics software to the investment management industry, has developed a new online broker offering for Banco Santander Totta in Portugal. The broker portal comes with an embedded trading functionality and a portfolio application. According to FactSet, the bank’s new web presence offers a “clear design with intuitive […]
Core banking tech vendor Ohpen has acquired a fellow Dutch fintech firm, FYNN Advice, which specialises in core banking software implementations.
ING will start a partnership with online wealth manager Scalable Capital as the bank plans a digital investment solution for its retail customers in Germany. Customers of ING in Germany will be able to register in less than 15 minutes through a paperless process. With a minimum investment of €10,000 they can monitor their portfolios […]
Chile-based LarrainVial has implemented Temenos’ T24 platform – seven years on from signing the contract – as it seeks growth throughout the Americas including in Chile, Colombia, Peru, and the US.
National Bank Investments (NBI), a subsidiary of National Bank of Canada, has opted for FactSet’s multi-asset class risk model, workstation, and analytics suite as its investment risk management and manager due diligence system.
Pension, insurance and investment management firm Aegon has embarked on a large technology project with a number of specialist tech providers – to move the acquired Cofunds business from the International Financial Data Services (IFDS) platform.
Nasdaq will acquire eVestment, a content and analytics provider used by asset managers and investment consultants, for $705 million funded through a mix of debt and cash on hand. According to Nasdaq, eVestment provides investors a database for both traditional and alternative strategies, including 2,800 individual data points on more than 74,000 investment vehicles. eVestment […]
Kempen, a €49.5 billion asset manager in the Netherlands, is replacing its legacy client reporting solution with Simcorp Coric.
Singapore-based B2B robo-advisor Bambu has completed a funding round, featuring a strategic investment from Franklin Templeton Investments and venture capital funding from Wavemaker Partners, part of the Draper Venture Network.
SimCorp is smiling as it’s secured three sweet wins in the asset and investment management space with C WorldWide Asset Management, Novo Holdings and FIIG Securities. Denmark-based C WorldWide Asset Management (formerly Carnegie Asset Management) has extended its Dimension licence agreement to include Data Warehouse Manager and will be replacing its current reporting solution with SimCorp Coric’s […]
Financial services group Trustees Australia and deposit marketplace Cashwerkz have merged as they seek to tap into the cash, term deposit and fixed income investments markets. According to the duo, the new entity has access to over 30 Australian banks, and it will be able to compete well in the $2.1 trillion cash deposit market. […]
Linedata has expanded its outsourcing business into Asia with the acquisition of Quality Risk Management & Operations (QRMO), a provider of outsourced middle-office, shadow accounting and risk monitoring services to the asset management and securities industries.
Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) and KPMG are launching the first Fintech Abu Dhabi Innovation Challenge – a five-week programme for “innovative and mature start-ups across the globe”.
South African heavyweight Absa Bank has unveiled its own artificial intelligence (AI)-powered online investment platform, Virtual Investor. The self-service platform uses AI and computer algorithms to recommend a product for customers based on their financial attitudes to risk. Armien Tyer, head of Absa Investments, says: “Individuals can either invest a once-off lump sum amount or […]
The world of blockchain and Bitcoin rumbles on with patents, platforms and positives. Our latest round-up features Bank of America, Blackmoon Financial Group, and research from Cognizant. Bank of America (BofA) has filed three new patents using blockchain. On the US Patent & Trademark Office’s website it now reveals the details. Some of the patents […]
Toronto-based NextBlock Global, a new digital asset investment company, has got itself off to a good start with the closing of an “oversubscribed” $20 million financing round. Like many other start-ups, NextBlock says it’s “disruptive” – and is setting its targets on the new digital asset economy. It says these assets, like Bitcoin and Ethereum, […]
Falcon is the “first” Swiss private bank to provide blockchain asset management solutions for its clients through a new co-operation with crypto financial broker Bitcoin Suisse. The bank’s clients can exchange and hold Bitcoins via Falcon using their cash holdings. Additionally, a Bitcoin ATM has been installed in the lobby of the bank’s headquarters in […]
Broadridge Financial Solutions will acquire Spence Johnson, a provider of institutional data and intelligence, for its asset management market ambitions. With the purchase, Broadridge says its Global Market Intelligence, a platform for retail cross-border fund data and analytics, will be able to use Spence Johnson’s Money in Motion dataset that provides analytics on assets, flows […]
SimCorp has acquired a fellow wealthtech vendor, APL Italiana, for €35 million. APL Italiana specialises investment and portfolio management software for the Italian insurance market.
Wealthsimple, a Canada-based online investment management service, is coming to the UK.
Natixis Asset Management has started testing the FundsDLT blockchain-powered platform for fund managers. The FundsDLT concept, announced last December in Luxembourg, is a collaboration between Fundsquare, IT firm InTech and KPMG Luxembourg. The platform will enable asset managers to sell funds through a new distribution channel, while doing all the other usual blockchain stuff – […]
Glenmede Trust Company, a US-based investment and wealth management firm with $34 billion of assets under management, is consolidating its institutional and wealth operations on Charles River’s Investment Management Solution (IMS).
Appian, a US-based provider of low-code application platform, says it has been enlisted by Vontobel Bank “to execute its digital transformation strategy across all business divisions”.
Global funds transaction network Calastone says it has “successfully” completed the first phase of its blockchain distributed market infrastructure proof-of-concept (PoC).
Large-scale operational projects within asset management firms are notoriously ambitious, incredibly complex and extremely hard to deliver. Global system implementations are a common culprit, where often multiple applications (some legacy) are being replaced.
Asset management firm Jabre Capital Partners has chosen Broadridge’s integrated trading, portfolio management, and risk management platform to help manage its front, middle and back-office operations. Broadridge says its solution will enable Jabre to streamline and automate workflow, and help meet its pre- and post-trade compliance requirements while providing connectivity to brokers and EMS platforms. […]
Bern-based Schweizerische Mobiliar Asset Management has implemented Profidata’s Xentis investment management system for its insurance, pensions and fund management businesses. Profidata, which is also based in Switzerland, says it was a “challenging project” to roll out the system within a time frame of 17 months. Xentis replaces various legacy applications, “makes several interfaces redundant and […]
London-based investment management firm Dolfin has gone live with Profile Software’s IMSplus and Axia systems.
Fintech entrepreneurs still have a few weeks left to win financial backing from two big players in the payment space. The Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) and JPMorgan Chase’s Financial Solutions Lab (FinLab) plan to award $250,000 to programs that help consumers build financial health, “with a special focus on those communities that are frequently underserved, such as older Americans, communities of color, people with disabilities and products that address the gender wealth gap.”
UBS is selling its risk and performance analytics service, UBS Delta, to StatPro Group, a provider of cloud-based portfolio analysis and asset pricing services for the global asset management industry.
AlgoMe, a London-based start-up offering career development and job placements in asset management, has launched its beta phase. The firm says it’s “rather like a dating app in that you get to determine if the match is right for you before your data is shared”. The web and mobile-based membership community is led by CEO […]
KBC Asset Management, Belgium’s largest investment manager, is implementing a new investment book of record (IBOR) platform, Simcorp Dimension, and Axioma’s risk management engine.
Recently I have been recruiting for a senior analyst position. We have reviewed over 40 CVs for a senior analyst position, and only two have been from women.
IBM and financial services firm Northern Trust have launched the “first commercial deployment” of blockchain for the private equity market. The blockchain is based on the Hyperledger Fabric and is available for use for managing the administration of a private equity fund managed by Unigestion, a Switzerland-based asset manager with $20 billion in assets under […]
Swiss-based Vontobel Asset Management has chosen SimCorp Coric to automate its client communications and fund reporting processes. Vontobel will deploy SimCorp Coric as a hosted solution via Microsoft Azure and the agreement will see the Coric solution replace in-house manual processes as well as an existing incumbent third-party solution. Stuart Keeler, managing director of SimCorp […]
