The RMR Group Inc announced the acquisition of the business of Tremont Realty Capital LLC, or Tremont, a firm that specializes in commercial real estate finance. Tremont principally raises debt and equity capital for owners of commercial real estate and serves as a manager of funds invested in commercial real estate loans. Since its founding in 2000, Tremont has completed over $4.6 billion worth of commercial real estate transactions and currently has over $200 million of real estate loans under management.

Calvert Investments launched the Calvert Energy Research Index (CALNRG), which marks the seventh addition to the firm’s growing suite of responsible indexes and its second research index. The new index focuses on investing in companies that manage either energy use in a sustainable manner or that are actively engaged in facilitating the transition to a more sustainable economy through the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the expanded use of renewable energy sources.

TIAA, a leading financial services provider, announced today an agreement to acquire EverBank, a nationwide consumer and commercial bank with $27.4 billion in total assets. This acquisition significantly expands TIAA’s banking and lending products and complements the company’s full suite of retirement, investment and advisory services available to help customers achieve financial well-being.

NICE  announced the launch of Scenario Analyzer, which allows organizations to conduct precise, in-depth analysis of various business challenges related to the cross-channel customer journey.

Some specific business use cases that can be addressed include:

Technavio’s latest report on the global mobile payment security software market provides an analysis on the most important trends expected to impact the market outlook from 2016-2020. Technavio defines an emerging trend as a factor that has the potential to significantly impact the market and contribute to its growth or decline.

I was chatting about Unicorns yesterday.  I won’t say which one we talked about, but one specific firm was being picked on as unsustainable and incorrectly valued.  I was particularly surprised to hear that their cost of customer acquisition is estimated to be $400 per customer.  For a start-up firm that is dealing in high volume, low cost transactions (a small clue) that is a shocker if true.

Despite a dip in consumer confidence and the introduction of new FCA regulations, the motor finance industry has continued to show strong growth, outperforming other sectors. Graham Donald, managing director, Equiniti Pancredit, explores how lenders in other industries might learn from the sector’s delivery of a seamless customer experience.

Big Data Fed by Social Media

Social media is creating a torrent of data every minute.  But how much of this firehose is relevant to making better investment decisions?

As hedge funds and asset managers eye an explosion in unstructured data from Twitter, Google searches, and other social content, many are subscribing to feeds that mine this data to detect events.

London Stock Exchange Group announced today that UnaVista, their award winning MiFID Approved Reporting Mechanism (ARM), has made user acceptance testing (UAT) available for MiFIR transaction reporting 17 months ahead of expected go-live.

MiFIR transaction reporting, expected to go-live in January 2018, is replacing the existing MiFID reporting regime with an expanded scope and field list. Reporting firms will need to report up to 65 fields to their home-state National Competent Authority (NCA).

Regions Financial has named Rick Ulmer President and CEO of Regions Insurance Group, Inc. with responsibility for Regions Insurance operations in 10 states. Regions Insurance Group, Inc.