FactSet, a global provider of integrated financial information, analytical applications, and industry-leading service, announced that it has agreed to acquire Interactive Data Managed Solutions (IDMS) from Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE) for cash consideration. With more than 300 employees across 14 offices in Europe and the United States, IDMS is a leading managed solutions and portal provider for the global wealth management industry.

Eka Software Solutions, the leading global provider of Smart Commodity Management software solutions, today announced that Eka was awarded IT and Software Solution of the Year - Business Intelligence Category by Corporate Vision magazine. The company was recognized for its groundbreaking Commodity Analytics Cloud solution, which aggregates information from across the value chain and uses predictive analytics to enable faster, fact-based decision making for commodity market participants. 

With hindsight, last year’s discussion about the differences in defining direct electronic access (DEA) under MiFID II and RegAT may have been somewhat premature. Firstly, with the change in both the US administration and the CFTC leadership it is now uncertain how RegAT will be progressed. Secondly, over the last few months it’s become clear that we can’t even agree within the EU what DEA means.

Mark Carney's comments come at a time when the industry is facing landmark regulation - the General Data Protection Regulation - which fundamentally alters the way that banks interact with their customers.

Corporate insolvencies

The corporate insolvency numbers have been skewed by a wave of personal service companies being closed in the last quarter. It may have been just the closure of a handful of companies run by an umbrella provider which led to the spike. When you look beyond that though, 2016 had more or less the same number of insolvencies as last year.

Sopra Steria (Paris:SOP) (Euronext Paris: SOP), a European leader in digital transformation, announced today that it had raised its stake in Cassiopae’s holding company KSEOP to 100% through its subsidiary Sopra Banking Software.

Sopra Banking Software had previously acquired 75% of KSEOP (see 24 February 2016 press release), and had planned to acquire the remaining shares by 2020.

Murex, the leading provider of trading, risk management and processing solutions, has been named the Market Risk Technology Vendor of the Year in the 2017 Risk Awards, directed by Risk Magazine. This award gives Murex, MX.3 for Enterprise Risk Management, recognition from the industry for its depth and sophistication of analytics, wide asset class coverage, best-in-breed technology, product innovations, and client support services.

Linedata (LIN:FP), the global solutions provider to the investment management and credit industries, today signed an agreement to acquire Gravitas Technology Services (Gravitas), a leading provider of middle office and technology services to the asset management industry. Gravitas is based mainly in New York (USA) and Mumbai (India).

Favourable market conditions

Lloyds Bank has become the first financial services company to undertake a trial with Signly – a British Sign Language (BSL) translation tool. Lloyds Banking Group’s Innovation Labs trialled the technology to understand how Signly could offer an alternative option for up to 250,000 people in the UK who use BSL each day. Since undertaking the trial, the Bank is now looking to test the technology with a wider group of customers.

BrokerTec, NEX Group’s global electronic fixed income trading platform, announces today that it has agreed to acquire a controlling majority stake in e-MID SIM SpA “e-MID”, the first Italian electronic central limit order book (CLOB) platform for interbank deposits and Overnight Indexed Swaps (OIS). The transaction is subject to certain conditions, including most importantly the approval of the Bank of Italy. Subject to receipt of the approval of the Bank of Italy, BrokerTec expects the transaction to complete in the next few months.