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Articles by Paul Sinthunont
Peeling Back the Layers of the ESG Data, Ratings, and Analytics Vendor Landscape
Peeling Back the Layers of the ESG Data, Ratings, and Analytics Vendor Landscape May 25, 2023 – The environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) data, ratings, and analytics needs of buy-side institutions continue to evolve as new products enter the market and regulatory reporting requirements expand across major financial jurisdictions.
The Time Is Now for the Buy-Side to Review Technology and Operations
Insufficient attention or just plain complacency around reviewing a firm's technology stack can result in asset managers falling significantly behind their peers, especially during a precarious period marked by major market events on the horizon. While margin pressure and increased competition have been constant challenges in the industry for the past decade, firms must now also navigate unfavorable market conditions and a shifting operating landscape.
Asset Management Year in Review, 2022: Industry Repositions in the “New Normal”
Asset Management Year in Review, 2022: Industry Repositions in the “New Normal” April 12, 2023 –2022 represented a challenging year for managers faced with uncertain macroeconomic conditions, falling markets, and overall investor uncertainty. The biggest impact on bottom lines has been the fall in the equity market in 2022, crashing down total assets under management.
Different ESG Flavors Meet a Growing Capital Markets Appetite
Different ESG Flavors Meet a Growing Capital Markets Appetite May 25, 2023 – The ESG data, analytics, research, and ratings needs of buy-side institutions continue to evolve and expand as new products are launched to the market and regulatory reporting requirements expand across the EU, the U.S., and the U.K. This means many buy-side firms have turned to third parties for the provision of data, scoring metrics, and deeper analytics and reporting to meet the host of needs across investment,...
Who’s Using Who for ESG: A Buy-Side Analysis
February 23, 2023 – The environmental, social, and governance data, analytics, research, and ratings needs of buy-side institutions continues to evolve and expand as new products are launched to the market and regulatory reporting requirements expand across major financial jurisdictions.
ESG Fund Management Regulation: Greenwashing Under the Microscope
ESG Fund Management Regulation: Greenwashing Under the Microscope November 29, 2022 – The U.S., the EU, and the U.K. have established or proposed rules around using the ESG label and how the industry can market and sell these products. These rules aim to protect investors from misselling (i.e., limit greenwashing by fund managers) and level the playing field by enabling fair product groupings and comparisons.
ESG Fund Regulation Across the U.S., the EU, and the U.K.: Divergence or Harmonization?
ESG Fund Regulation Across the U.S., the EU, and the U.K.: Divergence or Harmonization? November 22, 2022 – Investment managers face an expanding list of requirements around environmental, social, and governance disclosures and product transparency. Several factors are attracting regulatory attention, including country-level commitments to net-zero carbon emissions, inflows into ESG-oriented products, and accusations of greenwashing.
Aite Matrix Client Reference Feedback: Buy-Side Multi-Asset Risk
Aite Matrix Client Reference Feedback: Buy-Side Multi-Asset Risk London, 29 June 2022 –Buy-side risk management has expanded across multi-asset class requirements, placing a greater burden on the technology, data, and processing power necessary to support the risk function. The trend has been toward using third-party systems; firms must evaluate vendors before committing to a multi-year or decade-long relationship.
New Edges: How to Make the Most of Trading Flow Data
New Edges: How to Make the Most of Trading Flow Data Boston, June 15, 2022 – Data standardization in capital markets has created informational parity, making it difficult for firms to develop trading edges and generate alpha. Data classified as “most sensitive” has been challenging to share but often has the most value. Sharing “most sensitive” data across businesses can unlock alpha, create competitive differentiation, and reduce operational costs or risks.
Buy-Side Risk Management Trends: Multi-Asset Consolidation
Boston, March 2, 2022 –Risk management at buy-side firms continues to evolve with an increasing need to support the front office with ad-hoc analysis and ease the regulatory burden of greater transparency, stress testing, and liquidity risk management. At an organization level, firms have defined risk professionals and their role in supporting the investment process, alongside acting as a safety net for the firm.
Capital Markets Fintech Spotlight: Q4 2021
Boston, February 16, 2022 – The private equity and cryptocurrency markets have thrived in recent years, creating a huge amount of unstructured data across various documents as well as demand for a software solution to manage the entire deal/trade life cycle systemically. Firms can no longer rely on a manual process to pull together the data on demand from various sources to manage their trading portfolio.
Buy-Side OMS Market Overview 2022
Boston, January 27, 2022 –The asset management industry is experiencing enormous change and is unlikely to look the same in 10 years. Consequently, the order management systems that support these firms are trying to keep up. This Impact Report explores some of the key trends within the global buy-side OMS market and discusses how technology is evolving to address new market needs and challenges.
Capital Markets Fintech Spotlight: Q3 2021
Boston, January 12, 2022 –Data is only as valuable as the information it yields, and data must be well-sourced, well-managed, and effectively analyzed to create actionable information for business decisions. Vendors that can track structured, unstructured, and behavioral data have a competitive advantage. The Capital Markets Fintech Spotlight is a quarterly series of reports that looks at selected emerging fintech vendors active in the capital markets space.
ESG Data, Ratings, and Analytics: View From the Buy-Side
London, 9 December 2021 – The elevation of environmental, social, and governance or sustainability issues within the investment community has created a vital need for robust data and analytics. The investment management industry has long strived for clean and complete data to support both investment and operations, and ESG data is no different.
To Cloud or Not to Cloud: Factors Influencing Decision-Making at Banks
Boston, December 2, 2021 – The cloud has been hailed as one of the great innovations of the last decade, enabling firms to wrangle swaths of data that have become available in the last few years. The cloud’s scalability and flexibility have ensured greater speed and scale for heavy-compute consumers. However, banks have struggled with the cost and priority of regulatory compliance and still face hurdles such as a persistently low interest rate environment and volatile earnings and profitability.
The Partnership of NRI and Refinitiv: Augment Domestic Settlement Systems to Settle International Securities
Boston, November 9, 2021 – By adopting the best mix of complementary technology solutions, financial institutions can enhance their processes, but migrating from existing solutions is a long, time-consuming process. To solve the problem, Refinitiv and NRI have embarked upon a journey to combine offerings to support a fully automated domestic and international settlement and straight-through processing platform.
2021 Global ESG Regulatory Landscape: View From the Buy-Side
The attention on sustainability issues and ESG disclosures has pushed forward policy actions, but global consistency remains out of reach. London, 13 October 2021 — The attention on sustainability issues and ESG disclosures has pushed forward policies aimed at both corporations in all sectors and financial institutions that influence the global allocation of capital.
2021 Global ESG Regulatory Landscape: View From the Buy-Side
London, 13 October 2021 – The attention on sustainability issues and ESG disclosures has pushed forward policies aimed at both corporations in all sectors and financial institutions that influence the global allocation of capital. But many buy-side firms and other stakeholders find these policies to be incomplete; many policies are voluntary and have come in the form of guidance.
SWIFT Securities Strategy: Future-Proofing the Post-Trade Ecosystem
Boston, September 9, 2021 – SWIFT has embarked upon a securities strategy to develop a comprehensive, multi-asset class shared service suite that combines a transaction manager for payments with smarter securities services. The strategy aims to address the various challenges that SWIFT’s members currently face today.
Contingent and Oversight Net Asset Value: Who Watches the Watchmen?
Regulatory pressure and scrutiny are major reasons for firms to invest in oversight and contingent NAV functions and technologies. London, 8 July 2021 — London, 8 July 2021 – Over the past five years, regulators in key jurisdictions have commented on and made into law the need for financial institutions to understand the supply chain risk of third-party vendors, perform greater oversight over outsourced functions, and ensure the operational resiliency of internal processes.
Contingent and Oversight Net Asset Value: Who Watches the Watchmen?
London, 8 July 2021 – Over the past five years, regulators in key jurisdictions have commented on and made into law the need for financial institutions to understand the supply chain risk of third-party vendors, perform greater oversight over outsourced functions, and ensure the operational resiliency of internal processes. Specifically for buy-side institutions, greater regulatory attention is on fund valuation.
Aite Matrix Client Reference Feedback: Fixed Income Attribution Analytics
Boston, June 8, 2021 –Investment firms and institutional investors that need to explain performance will increasingly have to do so across all asset classes as portfolios become more complex. FIAA—specialized portfolio attribution analytics—have been historically difficult to implement. As a result, there is a growing need for third-party providers, including firms that are part of a larger ecosystem as well as smaller fintech firms.
Aite Matrix: Multi-Asset Buy-Side Risk
London, 12 May 2022 –Risk management is a critical part of the investment process that can act as an independent function to ensure compliance with regulations and client mandates. Risk providers face greater requirements to provide a portfolio analytics package, including performance attribution and portfolio optimization capabilities. Some firms prefer a strategy of consolidating front-middle or front-back technology with risk management inclusive of broader capabilities.
Data Management Trends in Capital Markets
London, 1 April 2021 – Capital markets firms are under intense client, regulatory, and business pressure to transform the way they operate. But a lack of investment in data architecture and experts in enterprise-level data strategy has left firms with data silos and legacy infrastructure that fail to deliver in a world where the volume and velocity of data have increased exponentially and business decisions need to be based on analytics.
Capital Markets Fintech Spotlight: Q1 2022
Boston, August 16, 2022 – Aite-Novarica Group’s Q1 2022 edition of the Capital Markets Fintech Spotlight features four vendors that focus on securities processing for the digital asset ecosystem, data management for unstructured data, data privacy across the data ecosystem, and private equity deal life cycle management in capital markets. All provide a scalable platform well within reach of organizations of all sizes.
Aite Matrix for Multi-Asset Class TCA Providers: Diamonds in the Rough
Boston, February 25, 2021 –Regulatory pressure, including the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II), and the need to quantify trading cost to achieve best execution have motivated the high adoption rates of TCA solutions by both buy-side and sell-side firms over the past few years. Most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the speed of electronification across all asset classes in an unprecedented trading environment.
Forever Indebted: Fixed Income Worldview, 2020
London, 18 February 2021 –Global fixed income markets offer unparalleled opportunities for both corporations and nations to borrow, determine interest rates, and provide investors with a relatively reliable source of income. Despite the turbulent market conditions of the past year, fixed income continues to represent an important and unique asset class that provides the reliability that other asset classes typically cannot.
Paxos Securities Settlement: Creating an Alternative Equity Clearing and Settlement Model in the U.S.
Boston, February 9, 2021 – Today, the clearing and settlement function in an FI is supported by a combination of new and legacy technology platforms. Still, FIs are seeking more advanced solutions that can shorten the settlement cycle while providing tangible benefits to reduce the operational risk, liquidity risk, counterparty exposure, margin, and collateral requirements. Paxos Trust Company is offering its Paxos Settlement Service (PSS) on a blockchain settlement platform.
Traders Want More Than Execution; They Want Intelligence
Traders Want More Than Execution; They Want Intelligence May 4, 2023 – Deep losses and market volatility throughout 2022 forced asset managers to adjust portfolio positions and rapidly rethink trading strategies. Execution timing and quality are more critical than ever, as are the factors influencing the use, choice, and perception of algo performance. This Impact Brief leverages data from an annual survey completed and published by The TRADE with analysis contributed by Aite-Novarica Group.
Has Electronic Trading Hit a Maturity Plateau?
Boston, October 4, 2022 – Electronic trading of different instruments appears stalled. Algorithmic trading by value and volume is hitting a ceiling, and EMS adoption is flat among firms of varying sizes. Has the industry hit the upper limits of its growth potential? Or could the introduction of new capabilities across asset classes (e.g., fixed-income portfolio trading) or the resolution of regulatory uncertainty drive additional participation and volume?
Front-to-Back-Office Systems and Custody Partnerships: Who Benefits?
London, 26 January 2021 – Providers of both technology and services have looked to benefit from their scalability and improve not only the breadth of their services but also the depth of integration between asset management’s IT and data architectures and those of third-party providers. This has led to the new trend of front-office or front-to-back portfolio management systems announcing “closer” partnerships with the major asset servicing players.
Global Corporate ESG Disclosures: U.S. and EU Divergence
Global Corporate ESG Disclosures: U.S. and EU Divergence Boston, October 13, 2022 –The ESG movement has grown across most industries and sectors. Capital market firms have come under the spotlight in many jurisdictions in this steering effort. Yet, policy goals and benchmarking sustainability efforts become difficult without widespread and consistent data, and the pace, progress, and consistency of implementation of standards have been slow.
Fixed Income Performance Attribution and Analytics: You Reap What You Sow
London, 24 November 2020 – Buy-side firms are choosing to reduce their costs and improve efficiency by outsourcing internal functions across the investment life cycle, including the calculation of key analytics, such as performance measurement and attribution. But fixed income attribution analytics isn’t a scalable process that can be outsourced like attribution calculations used in other asset classes.
2020 FX Market Worldview: Trading in Unprecedented Times
London, 19 November 2020 – The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March this year drove trading volume through the roof when most of the industry was working from home. This experience underlines the competitive advantages of having consolidated trading platforms that are accessible, resilient, and scalable.
Aite Matrix: Buy-Side OMS Market 2022
London, April 28, 2022 –In the order management system space, change comes in waves, and the asset management industry is unlikely to look the same in 10 years. Cost pressures and advances in technology have pushed firms to innovate in areas such as automation, artificial intelligence, and cloud deployment, as new features and workflows help manage business growth or a reduction in human resources.
Why the C-Suite Needs to Care About Data: A Capital Markets Impact Assessment
Many capital markets firms acknowledge that data is the foundation and life blood of both buy-side and sell-side businesses. But the lack of past investment in data architecture has placed firms under intense pressure to deliver against a backdrop of increasing client, regulatory, and business requirements.
Buy-Side Fund and Investment Accounting: Overlooked but Not Forgotten
London, 5 March 2020 – Investment and fund accounting are often overlooked functions that span the middle and back operations of global buy-side firms and, as such, are commonly outsourced, to some degree, to third-party providers.
Class-Actions Processing: The Lesser-Known Post-Trade Headache
London, 15 January 2020 – Securities class actions allow investors to pursue litigation as a single class, rather than pursue their own individual litigation, in the interests of efficiency and cost, and the core purpose of these lawsuits is to protect shareholders from harm.
XVA Vendor Solutions: The Golden Age
XVA Vendor Solutions: The Golden Age By Audrey Costabile Blater, Paul Sinthunont Boston, April 24, 2019 – For years, the primary and often stand-alone use of X-valuation adjustments centered around fair value accounting requirements. But this has changed as XVA desks, most prominent in large Tier-1 banks, start to proliferate across lower-tier banks.
Capital Markets Fintech Spotlight: Q2 2021
London, 18 August 2021– ESG factors and the wider impact of companies on their workers, society, and the environment have become a vital topic over the past few years in capital market discussions. Regulators and lawmakers also continue to provide guidance or requirements around ESG integration that drives investment in ESG and third-party data and solutions for reporting and compliance.
How ESG Integration and Data Are Changing Buy-Side Firms
How ESG Integration and Data Are Changing Buy-Side Firms London, 28 November 2018 – Environmental, social, and governance strategies have emerged over the past decade within the global investment landscape and have seen increasing adoption. Overall, individual firms’ approaches can vary significantly, along with the extent to which investment analysis is performed.
Buy-Side Priorities in Risk Management Technology: Through the Looking Glass
Boston, October 17, 2018 – The requirements for best-of-breed risk systems and position-keeping systems in North America and Europe have evolved over time, with static reports no longer sufficient given increased demand for flexibility and ad hoc intraday analysis.
How Technology Can De-Risk Distributor-Manager Communications, sponsored by Delta Data
On Wednesday, July 11, Ignites will present the webcast, “How Technology Can De-Risk Distributor-Manager Communications,” sponsored by Delta Data.” This webcast will examine the current state of counterparty communications and the potential for technology to help both sides streamline these processes to avoid risk.
Portfolio Management Systems Landscape, 2018: Anyone’s Game
London, 10 April 2018 – Buy-side firms’ core portfolio management systems encompass the front-office and middle-office technology—from portfolio construction and trade inception to position keeping and performance and risk analytics—and the back-office’s accounting engines. This wide range of functions is reflected in a wide selection of vendors, some of which focus on front-to-middle-office functionality or on back-office accounting while others attempt to offer a full front-to-back platform.
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