State Street expands in Abu Dhabi, Etrading advances UK bond tape, and more

How is it the end of January already? (Editor’s Note: Wei-Shen is the only person on Earth who feels this way.)

Announced this week

HPR launches ultra-low latency gateway

HPR has launched Maxbot, an ultra-low-latency market access gateway and pre-trade risk solution with a full hardware data path. It has been designed to support banks, execution venues and trading firms.

Maxbot offers sub-microsecond, deterministic latency, wire-to-wire. It enables 500,000 messages per second of sustained throughput and burst capacity of up to 12 million messages per second. With more than 400 trading sessions, firms can access every venue in any geographic region using a single Maxbot appliance.

Etrading Software to deliver UK’s bond consolidated tape

Etrading Software has signed the concession agreement with the Financial Conduct Authority to act as the provider responsible for delivering the UK’s bond consolidated tape (CT). Signing the agreement marks the formal transition into the implementation phase, during which ETS Connect UK, a subsidiary of Etrading Software, will undertake the build and operational delivery of the UK bond CT.

The signing serves as the launch point for the program to advance in line with the published timeline, including the release of draft and final contracts, publication of technical specifications, establishment of the CT consultative committee, and a structured series of industry engagement activities.

BondWave enhances transaction and portfolio solutions

BondWave has rolled out new enhancements to its Effi transaction analytics and portfolio analytics solution suites to help users quickly analyze, monitor, and manage their fixed-income portfolios.

The latest release expands the capabilities and improves the scope of analytics of BondWave’s transaction quality analysis solution, a tool that enables users to measure their total trade costs and compare them against relevant peers in the marketplace.

The recent updates improve coverage, introduce richer statistical insights and asset-type breakouts, add market context to trade cost details, and provide additional reports to identify which counterparties are delivering the most value, helping users better understand execution performance and identify opportunities to increase returns.

State Street establishes new operating center in Abu Dhabi

State Street has signed a support agreement with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) to establish a new operating center in the Al Ain region in Abu Dhabi, in line with State Street’s strategy to grow its business in the Middle East and the UAE.

The new operating hub will create more than 300 financial services roles over the next four years. State Street will also collaborate with local universities to create career and internship opportunities for graduates, as well as organize training and seminars to help develop the next generation of local young talent.

This collaboration also forms part of ADIO’s FinTech, Insurance, Digital and Alternative Assets cluster, a platform to develop high-value, exportable financial capabilities and create a future-facing financial services ecosystem. By 2045, the cluster is projected to contribute an additional AED56 billion ($15.25 billion) to Abu Dhabi’s gross domestic product and attract at least AED17 billion ($4.6 billion) in investment.

BC Partners selects Allvue for AI document extraction

BC Partners, an investment firm, has selected Allvue Systems’ newly launched document extraction product, Allvue Document IQ. The solution streamlines portfolio monitoring and financial spreading by combining AI-enabled data extraction technology with human-in-the-loop quality assurance, and is delivered as a fully managed service.

Analysts at investment firms often manually enter data from various sources into their systems. This labor-intensive process slows decision-making, increases the risk of manual errors, and diverts valuable team focus from business-critical operations.

Using Allvue Document IQ’s AI document extraction technology allows firms like BC Partners to transform raw documentation into refined, actionable data without leaving their existing workflows.

Avelacom expands access to Argentina

Ultra-low latency network and infrastructure provider Avelacom, is expanding its presence in Argentina to enable banks and other financial institutions to connect directly to Argentina’s equities and derivatives markets for real-time market data and order execution.

As part of this expansion, Avelacom is launching a new point of presence (PoP) at Bolsas y Mercados Argentinos SA’s data center in Buenos Aires and adding new low-latency routes across Latin America’s west coast (via Chile) and east coast (via Brazil), providing access to the US and other global markets.

Avelacom has been in Latin America since 2021, initially supporting global market-making firms in expanding their trading activities on the Brazilian Exchange (B3).

Seven Points Capital expands in London

New York-based prop trading firm Seven Points Capital has opened a new office in London. According to the firm, the expansion coincides with a broader reset across the proprietary trading industry, as challenge-based firms face increased scrutiny and traders seek more sustainable environments built on shared risk, accountability and long-term alignment between trader and firm.

Seven Points operates a hybrid model, combining physical trading offices with a distributed global trader base. In addition to its new London office, the firm maintains offices in New York, Arizona and Fort Lauderdale, while supporting traders operating remotely across Canada and Europe.

UK’s Mattioli Woods partners with JP Morgan Asset Management

Mattioli Woods, a UK wealth management and employee benefits firm, has partnered with JP Morgan Asset Management to enhance its centralized investment proposition (CIP) and broaden the range of institutional-quality investment solutions available to its advisers and clients.

The partnership is the next phase of Mattioli Woods’ CIP and builds on the success of its collaboration with T. Rowe Price, launched in December 2023. These relationships form a scalable, centralized framework to deliver improved outcomes, greater consistency and enhanced portfolio choice for clients.

Under the agreement, JP Morgan Asset Management will design and manage a suite of bespoke global multi-asset, growth-tilted portfolios built exclusively for Mattioli Woods. The three new models are purpose-built for Mattioli Woods’ investment infrastructure rather than replications of existing JP Morgan funds.

The strategies provide diversified exposure across asset classes and geographies. The new models will be available to Mattioli Woods’ clients from January 30, 2026.

What you might have missed from us

Pressure mounts on Asia to fall in line for T+1

The benefits of shortening settlement cycles are plenty, but the most pronounced ones are reduced counterparty settlement risk and improved capital efficiency. North America successfully transitioned to a T+1 cycle on May 28, 2024, and now the UK and EU are on track to similarly move by October 11, 2027.

In the meantime, there are questions on whether Asia-Pacific jurisdictions should move to a shorter cycle too, with varying opinions. One report revealed that 43% of global investors favor the region moving to T+1 by late 2027, but there is much to consider for each jurisdiction, and careful planning is needed. 

Re-examining Big Tech’s influence over the capital markets

In this week’s Wrap, Tony looks at Big Tech’s influence on the capital markets. In an earlier column, he anticipated that Big Tech cloud providers would have a further reach into the capital markets, perhaps with a massive acquisition. But just a few months later, ChatGPT was released, and the calculus changed.

Regulators, too, are taking a more hands-on approach to overseeing AI, particularly with the EU’s AI Act coming into greater force in August. He asks if regulators are coming for AI, what will that mean for Big Tech’s capital markets play?

Why UPIs could spell goodbye for OTC-Isins

In November, the Financial Conduct Authority published a consultation paper proposing revisions to rules requiring participants in the UK’s financial markets to report their trades to the regulator, which would help it monitor for potential abuse.

Among the details of executed trades firms need to report is the Isin distinguishing between unique OTC derivatives contracts. But the OTC-Isin has been criticized for failing to do its job properly. Reporting firms can find economically different derivatives share the same OTC-Isin, while in other cases the same derivatives can have multiple OTC-Isins.

Regulators in Europe are planning to address the issue in multiple ways. One is to replace the OTC-Isin with the Unique Product Identifier, and another is to modify the OTC-Isin to fix its faults.

AI strategies could be pulling money into the data office

In the fifth installment of our first benchmarking series, we find that financial institutions are working to formalize and document their AI strategies amid rapidly advancing technology capabilities. And it’s having a knock-on effect for firms’ data offices, who are seeing increased attention and sometimes even budgets, as financial players strive to capitalize on generative AI, agentic AI, and automation.

One buy-side chief data officer reported that their office had developed its own official guidance for using generative AI within the department, separate from its existing enterprise data management strategy. Last year, though, the office contributed to a firm-wide GenAI strategy, still to be approved by the management committee and board.

Eventually, the CDO expects the firm’s AI and data strategies to be linked.

TMX Datalinx makes co-location optionality play with Ultra

Exchanges providing colocation services are weighing up new latency offerings that prioritize increasing information consistency over reducing latency.

This week, TMX Datalinx introduced Ultra, an optional service for co-location users that offers an equal latency profile for clients, which the exchange group’s data unit hopes will increase information consistency for firms that have trading strategies not solely focused on speed.

In other news

Exclusive: China conditionally approves DeepSeek to buy Nvidia’s H200 chips—sources, Reuters

China has given DeepSeek approval to buy Nvidia’s H200 artificial intelligence chips with regulatory conditions that are still being finalized, sources told Reuters’ Fanny Potkin.

Reuters reported earlier that ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent had been given permission to buy more than 400,000 H200 chips in total. But Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told reporters in Taipei on January 29, 2026, that the company had not received such information, and believed that China was still finalizing the license.

DeepSeek shook the tech world when it released its R1 reasoning model on GitHub and its website, reportedly for less than $6 million using Nvidia’s less-advanced H800 chips. While it remains to be seen whether DeepSeek will actually have approval to buy Nvidia’s H200 chips, if it’s true, it’ll be fascinating to see how they use it. Will you be keeping an eye on this? I for sure will…