FCA eyes equities tape, OpenAI and Capco team up, prediction markets gain steam, and more

The best Thanksgiving side is mashed potatoes. I will not debate this. 

Now the news.

Announced this week

FCA proposes equity CT to bolster UK’s competitiveness

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has launched a consultation on proposals to introduce a UK equity consolidated tape to help increase capital investment and liquidity in equity markets.

The new framework aims to improve market effectiveness by providing a view of trading volumes and prices across UK venues, support UK listings by giving firms and investors a more complete picture of liquidity, and increase participation in UK markets by ensuring easy and affordable access to market data.

The consultation is seeking feedback on introducing a tape that includes both post-trade data and the attributed best bid and offer prices (the first level of pre-trade data) across UK trading venues. The equity tape aims to be operational in 2027. After two years of operation, the FCA will review the framework’s effectiveness, including whether pre-trade data levels should be varied.

Pisces operator approved by FCA in push for growth

The FCA has approved JP Jenkins to operate a Pisces platform, a new type of private stock market that aims to connect buyers and sellers to trade shares in private companies on an intermittent basis.

The FCA provides pre-application and application support services for all potential Pisces operators. So far the regulator has issued two approvals, with the first being the London Stock Exchange.

Read WatersTechnology’s previous coverage of Pisces here.

LSEG integrates with Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform         

LSEG has announced that customers will be able to access its cloud-based historical tick data via Google Cloud’s BigQuery and Vertex AI platform. This integration enables financial institutions to apply AI and machine-learning technology directly to LSEG tick history data available on Vertex AI, providing users with data and intelligence to inform trading and risk management.

Vertex AI is Google Cloud’s fully managed, unified AI development platform for building and using AI. With Vertex AI, LSEG aims to deliver several advantages to customers with access to LSEG tick history on Google Cloud including accelerated processing and agentic AI adoption.

Deutsche Börse partners with SocGen on tokenization

Deutsche Börse Group, Société Générale, and Société Générale-FORGE have signed an agreement to accelerate the integration of token-based cash solutions with traditional market infrastructure. The integration of SG-FORGE’s CoinVertible as a payment and settlement stablecoin will aim to foster financial innovation in both groups.

The initial focus of the partnership intends to strengthen CoinVertible’s collateral management structure and usability as a settlement instrument for securities processes, for collateral management, and for treasury functions at Clearstream, Deutsche Börse’s post-trade business. This partnership will also improve CoinVertible’s liquidity through a new listing on Deutsche Börse digital trading platforms.

Further steps will include jointly analyzing the possibility of integrating the EUR and USD CoinVertible stablecoins across the entire service portfolio of Deutsche Börse Group, enlarging use cases for MiCA-compliant stablecoins natively suitable for financial institutions and the broader cryptocurrency industry.

OpenAI and Capco announce partnership

Global management and technology consultancy Capco has joined OpenAI’s Beta Services Partner Program, providing Capco with priority access to the very latest AI innovation. Capco and OpenAI will collaborate to solve complex client problems and deploy scalable solutions.

Through the services partnership, Capco gains early access to OpenAI’s technology, technical support, solution architects, and training resources. OpenAI will leverage Capco’s 25 years of global transformation expertise and delivery experience across the financial services and energy sectors.

Capco’s AI Lab previously used OpenAI’s technology to build its Compliance Assist tool. Which  helps banks scan upcoming regulatory changes and automatically identify the changes required to a firm’s processes and procedures.

Capco and OpenAI will explore how OpenAI’s GPT-5 offering of improved contextual understanding and fine-tuning can further automate and streamline processes.

TS Imagine’s TradeSmart now on Temenos Exchange

TS Imagine, a provider of front-office trading solutions for capital markets, has announced that TradeSmart is available on Temenos Exchange, the partner ecosystem of fintech solutions hosted by Temenos.

TradeSmart enables global financial institutions to trade across all asset classes with all their counterparties through a single integrated solution. TradeSmart leverages TS Imagine’s global network of liquidity providers, brokers and venues, and offers execution tools, real-time market data, and analytics across 25 million financial instruments.

Rimes partners with Databricks to deliver managed data services

Rimes, a provider of enterprise data management and investment intelligence solutions to the global investment community, is partnering with Databricks to make Rimes Managed Data Services available natively on the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform. The partnership leverages Delta Sharing, the open-source protocol for secure data exchange, enabling users to access and integrate Rimes’ data directly within their Databricks environments.

Through this partnership, Rimes customers will be able to connect to their structured datasets without replication, reducing latency and accelerating access to AI-ready data. The combination of Rimes’ domain expertise in investment data and Databricks’ open, unified platform and flagship AI products, such as Agent Bricks, will improve financial institutions’ ability to optimize analytics, automate workflows, and drive new levels of data intelligence with operational efficiency.

Broadridge, Xceptor partner on tax reclaims and asset servicing operations

Broadridge Financial Solutions has partnered with Xceptor, a data automation platform, to offer a unified digital platform automating the global tax relief and tax reclaim lifecycle. With this partnership, Xceptor Tax will be integrated with Broadridge’s Global Tax & Client Reporting Solution to create a solution for multi-jurisdictional tax relief-at-source, tax reclaims, and digital regulatory filing.

Built on Broadridge’s integrated platform technology and Xceptor’s configurable and enterprise-grade platform, the combined solution enables easy connection and out-of-the-box integration with existing systems. Through automated data flows, centralized documentation, and regulatory updates, clients can automatically identify relief-at-source and tax reclaim opportunities, monitor eligibility, and manage tax documentation.

What you might have missed from us

50% of firms are using AI or ML to spot data quality issues

Initial results from our Automation in Data Management Benchmark were made public this week. According to our survey, which is still open, about half of banks use AI and machine learning to spot data quality issues. But most issues, about 75%, are remediated without the help of emerging technologies.

If you are a bank and would like to participate in our inaugural benchmark, email emmahilary.gould@infopro-digital.com to receive a link.

Technology alone is not enough for Europe’s T+1 push

With Europe moving to T+1 settlement in two years, the pressure is on to improve operational efficiency. Technologies like AI and automation can offer some relief, but it can’t do it all. Trade associations like ISITC are looking at the lessons learned from the US T+1 transition in aiding the October 2027 move. Stakeholders across the industry agree that more focus and communication around the back office can serve as a major lift.

FCA files to lift UK bond tape suspension, says legal claims ‘without merit’

This week, the Financial Conduct Authority filed an application with the UK’s High Court to lift the suspension place on the bond tape process, which came after London-based fintech Ediphy contested the regulator’s decision to award the tape contract to rival Etrading Software. “We welcome the FCA’s application to lift the automatic suspension. The application is a strong signal to market participants to continue their preparations for the launch of the UK tape, while the legal challenge proceeds in parallel,” says Sassan Danesh, CEO of Etrading Software.

Ediphy’s complaints include an alleged conflict of interest at the FCA and a belief that the fundamental mechanism of the tender process, which was run as a reverse auction, was flawed.

Ediphy is the leading member of consortium FairCT, which lost the UK race but was awarded the contract for the EU’s version of a fixed-income consolidated tape in July. FairCT is backed by FactSet, Google Cloud, Norges Bank Investment Management, TP Icap, and UBS. Chicago exchange group Cboe Global Markets dropped its involvement in the initiative before Ediphy filed its case, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Waters Wavelength Ep. 339: Northern Trust Asset Management’s Jan Rohof

This week, Jan Rohof from Northern Trust Asset Management joins the podcast to discuss how asset managers and quants can get more context from data.

Jump Trading spinoff Pyth enters institutional market data

After launching in 2021, Pyth Network is now looking to compete more directly with institutional market data providers. In September, the peer-to-peer network launched Pyth Pro, a subscription service for market data across crypto, equities, fixed income, commodities and foreign exchange. It comes at a time when traditional firms are increasingly tiptoeing toward decentralized technologies such as asset tokenization, which has lately received frenzied attention from the world’s largest names in financial services.

Pyth’s model gathers market data directly from exchanges, data vendors and trading firms, aggregates it under the applicable symbols, and makes it available on-chain. Publishers include familiar names like Jump, Jane Street, Susquehanna, IEX, MEMX, Two Sigma, and Cboe Global Markets, while crypto publishers include Kaiko, LMAX, OKX, Talos, and Binance.

Buy-side data heads push being on ‘right side’ of GenAI

At a Bloomberg event in London this week, tech executives from Man Group and Systematic Investments outlined the areas where generative AI is serving their firms best.

Grégoire Dooms, head of data research and development at Systematic Investments, said the advancements of GenAI were proceeding incredibly quickly, and had significantly changed the way the firm interacted with unstructured datasets. Dooms explained that the technology had lowered the bar to accessing and processing unstructured textual data.

Tushara Fernando, head of data and machine learning at Man Group, said generative AI was the “biggest thing since the internet” and was “fundamentally changing” the way that processes were thought about and optimized at the hedge fund.

AI enthusiasts are running before they can walk

There is something about flashy, new technology that makes some want to run before they can walk. AI is proving to be no exception.

In this week’s IMD Wrap, Wei-Shen lays out what is tripping organizations up when it comes to utilizing the technology. Spoiler alert: it’s nothing new.

In other news

Prediction Markets to Rival Stocks Within Years, Kalshi CEO Says, Bloomberg

At the Futures Industry Association Expo conference this week in Chicago, Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour said the rapid growth in prediction markets this year has put the emerging market on track to overtake the stock market.

Obviously, Mansour has an agenda to push as he angles for his platform to lead that market. But I wouldn’t be surprised if competitors like Polymarket agree with that sentiment. If you follow the money, I don’t think it’s a bad bet.

Intercontinental Exchange announced a strategic investment in Polymarket last month to the tune of $2 billion. The investment includes ICE becoming a global distributor of Polymarket’s event-driven data and providing customers with sentiment indicators on topics of market relevance. Additionally, ICE and Polymarket have also agreed to partner on future tokenization initiatives.

Kalshi has already inked a partnership with Robinhood Markets in a push to get its event contracts in front of more eyes. And more traditional names like CME are also creeping in. Last week, the derivatives exchange group announced a deal with online gaming giant FanDuel to launch prediction markets through the new FanDuel Predicts app, slated to launch next month.

If Terry Duffy is interested, I think that is worth noting.