BlackRock further integrates Preqin, Nasdaq and Osaka Exchange partner, and more

While teachers and parents had something to do with it, I learned to read because of my local newspaper. Growing up in Easton, Pennsylvania, I checked the sports section in the Morning Call every day. From there, my interest spread to the business section, and my mom and I had competitions to see who the better stock picker was. (She was/is.) When I got to high school (now in Carmel, New York), I ran to get the Journal News every morning after my wrestling matches to see if my name was there. And then, in college, I always had a copy of the Press-Republican, where I covered local news and politics as an intern.

But my love of reading and being informed all started with the sports section. What’s happening at the Washington Post is a travesty. What’s happening to newspapers around the United States is heartbreaking. If you think that your kids and your kids’ kids (much less you) are going to be better off without strong local and national papers, I have a bridge to sell you.

The sports, or comics, or lifestyle sections might seem trivial, but they inform and create common interests; they build community. You might agree or disagree with reporting, but at least you have more facts and views at your disposal to make informed decisions than listening to talking heads on cable news or what BillyLuvzButtz has to say on Twitter.

I truly appreciate your support for our journalism. We hope we’re of value to you. If you have thoughts on our coverage, this is a community after all. Hit me up: anthony.malakian@infopro-digital.com.

Announced this week

BlackRock further integrates Preqin data into Aladdin

After acquiring data provider Preqin in June 2024, BlackRock Aladdin has integrated the vendor’s data and technology into its eFront platform for private markets investors. As a result, institutional clients can now manage their entire investment lifecycle in one place, with market context from Preqin.

Osaka Exchange taps Nasdaq for its derivatives infrastructure

Japan Exchange Group’s Osaka Exchange has selected Nasdaq’s Eqlipse trading and market Surveillance technology platforms as it builds out its derivatives infrastructure. The platforms support multi-asset, low-latency trading. It will also allow the Japanese exchange to better manage volume fluctuations, while providing additional risk management tools.

Arcesium acquires buy-side trading platform

Portfolio and order management systems provider Arcesium has acquired Limia, which provides a middle- and back-office operating platform for asset managers, hedge funds, and asset owners. The vendor says that this pairing will help to eliminate legacy fragmentation and connect siloed data. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Confluence, Canoe partner

Canoe Intelligence is partnering with Confluence Technologies, which will see Canoe Connect and Canoe Intelligence integrated with Confluence’s Paris portfolio analytics and reporting information system. The collaboration is geared toward asset allocators and asset owners managing alternative portfolios. By connecting Canoe’s document collection and data extraction tools with Paris’ analytics and reporting capabilities, the integration aims to automate the aggregation of alternative investment data.

TNS closes Radianz deal

Transaction Network Services (TNS) has completed its acquisition of BT’s Radianz business. To read WatersTechnology’s coverage of the acquisition, click here.

ICE Clear Credit gets the green light on Treasury clearing

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the Intercontinental Exchange’s application and rulebook for ICE Clear Credit to expand its registered covered clearing agency designation to include US Treasury clearing. The service, which is operationally live, delivers both ‘done-away’ and ‘done-with’ implementations, allowing market participants to choose their preferred clearing method. This is the same process that is used daily to clear financial products through ICE’s global clearing houses.

Numerix grows LatAm presence

Numerix has expanded its partnership with data provider Proveedor Integral de Precios (PiP LatAm) to deliver Numerix solutions to institutions across Spanish-speaking Latin America. As a result, banks, broker-dealers, insurance companies, and asset managers can access a broader range of Numerix capabilities, spanning pricing, valuation, market risk, and balance sheet risk management, delivered locally through PiP LatAm.

Ripple grows institutional offering

Ripple announced that Ripple Prime, its institutional prime brokerage platform, now supports Hyperliquid, a decentralized derivatives protocol. This integration enables institutional clients to access on-chain derivatives liquidity while cross-margining decentralized finance exposures with all other asset classes supported by Ripple Prime, including digital assets, foreign exchange, fixed income, OTC swaps, and cleared derivatives.

What you might’ve missed from us

Digital employees have BNY talking a new language

Julie Gerdeman, global head of data and analytics at BNY, explains how the bank’s move to a platforms operating model, and away from siloes, has helped to it to roll out digital employees quickly. At the close of 2025, the bank had 160 enterprise AI solutions in production, 134 live digital employees, partnerships with Nvidia, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Google Cloud, and approximately 120 AI‑related patent applications.

“This may sound a little philosophical,” Gerdeman said, “but not only are we leading people, but AI is a teammate. So having leaders who can lead our human employees and lead digital agents is a massive shift. I’m super psyched that we’re living in this time because it’s just incredible to think of our teammates as digital and/or human in the work that they do and the impact that they have.”

Everything you need to know about market data in overnight equities trading

Despite relatively small trading volumes, overnight trading in equity markets is expected to grow, and with that, data will become more important. Four overnight alternative trading systems—Blue Ocean/Boats, Bruce Markets, OTC Overnight, and Moon—now offer US equity trading outside regular hours, and are being connected by data and infrastructure firms, with partnerships being forged.

“It was our decision internally that it made sense for us to go ahead and onboard all four. They’re nascent, and we wanted to make sure that we had them available so that as interest continues to grow in these overnight ATSs, we weren’t chasing after the ball; we were set ahead of the curve,” said Margaret Niche, vice president and head of ICE Global Network.

ICE to seek tokenization approval from SEC under existing federal laws

Speaking of the Intercontinental Exchange, during the company’s Q1 earnings call, ICE CEO Jeff Sprecher said the company plans to apply for SEC regulatory approval for its subsidiary, the New York Stock Exchange, to trade tokenized securities under existing federal laws. In January, NYSE unveiled plans for a tokenized securities platform, which will allow on-chain settlement, 24/7 trading of US-listed equities and exchange-traded funds, and fractional trading.

“Our intent is to tokenize regulated securities that attach contractual rights and interests to their holders, just as they occur under existing securities laws such as ownership rights, dividends, and voting privileges,” Sprecher said

Can mastering data solve AI’s cognitive dissonance?

Bank execs are still bullish on AI—most every investment bank CEO was talking about AI on their earnings calls over the past month—but recent studies suggest it’s not the panacea they’re making it out to be. In a commentary independently published, David Hardoon, global head of AI enablement at Standard Chartered, calls the persistent clash between ambitious AI goals and entrenched demands for stability “AI cognitive dissonance.”

In his commentary, he points out that firms often showcase patterns—or symptoms—of a deeper misalignment between stability and innovation. Symptoms include cyclical oscillations in governance models, budgetary cycles, talent-hiring cycles, changes in leadership structures, and applying higher standards to AI than to existing operations.

Market-makers seek answers about CME’s cloud move

More than four years after CME announced plans to migrate its technology systems to Google Cloud, market-makers say they are still not getting the information they need to prepare for the move.

“There are questions around whether we are able to have the same type of hardware setup that people have today,” said the market structure head at a trading firm. “Is that going to be possible in the new environment?”

SGX to modernize data lake

The Singapore Exchange is modernizing its data lake as part of a broader project to enhance its securities trading platform. During the group’s analyst briefing for its half-year results for FY26, SGX CEO Boon Chye Loh said the modernization “will create capability and functionalities for us to create data and indices that participants will find useful.”

SGX will introduce Iris‑ST, a new trading engine in the latter half of 2027. The exchange also took a S$15m impairment on Scientific Beta, an acquisition it made in 2020.

Waters Wavelength Ep. 346: TS Imagine’s Andrew Morgan

This week’s guest is Andrew Morgan, president and chief revenue officer at TS Imagine. He talks about changing fixed-income trading behaviors and the continued push toward electronification.

People Moves: Cboe, MarketAxess, ING, BMLL, and more

A look at the past month’s people moves in the capital markets tech and data space.

In other news

Heavy Is the Crown: George R.R. Martin on His Triumphs and Torments, The Hollywood Reporter

Since I started this column on my journalism high horse, let me end by trashing one of the greatest fiction writers of all time, George R.R. Martin. If you’re not a fan of Game of Thrones, I doubt this story will appeal to you. But the short and skinny of it is that Martin wrote the books that informed the famous (infamous?) HBO television series. The first six seasons were connected to the book. But Martin, who is 77 years old, has not yet finished the last two books of the series, (The Winds of Winter, which would be the sixth book, being the next). So…the clock is ticking.

This profile delves into the writer’s thoughts on whether he can finish his opus after HBO’s writers produced a truly terrible final season of the television series. Martin talks about all the different projects he has underway (which is bringing him millions and millions and millions of dollars) and how he so wishes he had more time to focus on the final book. Povero bambino! Vuoi un Kleenex?

Now, he created the magnificent world of Game of Thrones (book series: A Song of Ice and Fire), so he’s allowed to do whatever he wants with the characters he created. But the readers (and subsequent viewers) made him more money than he could ever spend. At some point, in my humble opinion, you owe it to the readers to stop trying to make money in other ventures and, for better or worse, finish the damn book(s).

It’s kind of akin to Woodward and Bernstein reporting on Nixon and then, as they’re oh so close to driving home the final nail, saying, “Meh, why go deeper? Let’s just cash in and switch to a new project.”