Kantox and Silicon Valley Bank expand FX partnership to US clients

Kantox has announced an expansion of its partnership with Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). Through this expansion, SVB’s corporate clients across the US will now be able to leverage Kantox’s Dynamic Hedging solution to automate the management of their currency risk. 

By introducing the Kantox platform to SVB’s existing suite of specialised currency management solutions, SVB clients will be able to leverage a fully automated FX risk management solution that can help them to minimise risk, reduce costs and gain a competitive edge when operating across borders. The seamlessly integrated technology provides instant visibility into both macro and micro FX exposures and automatically offsets risk by booking, reporting and reconciling hedging transactions in real-time – all with minimal human intervention. 

The expanded partnership follows a successful launch in EMEA in which SVB’s UK corporate clients were provided access to Kantox’s solution. 

"SVB innovation clients conduct business globally from inception and are always looking for improved efficiency in managing their FX risk and optimising execution through automation," commented Paul Jennings, head of FX Advisory at Silicon Valley Bank. 

"SVB is the perfect partner for us to take our first steps within the US market," added Philippe Gelis, CEO and co-founder at Kantox. "They understand the growing need for digital transformation within finance and view the innovation economy with a similar lens to that of our own. We’re excited to jointly offer our award-winning Kantox Dynamic Hedging solution to their US corporate clients, which will create greater efficiencies for treasurers and provide added value to SVB’s current FX services."

 

Complidata and IHS Markit partner on trade finance market data

IHS Markit and Complidata have announced a partnership to offer customers in the trade finance space a series of risk and compliance datasets designed to enhance financial crime due diligence frameworks and assist in the digitisation of the overall trade compliance workflow.

IHS Markit has a 300-year history within the maritime and trade sector, managing content sets across the shipping, port, cargo, and trading sectors. The in-depth and broad scope of datasets managed by IHS Markit goes beyond watch-list screening to provide organisations with the ability to identify corporate networks, suspicious vessel activity, export-controlled goods, and unit prices across the full HS code spectrum. IHS Markit's trade-based money laundering datasets, including thousands of dual-use goods that do not appear on catch-all control lists and the capture of over and under-invoicing price discrepancies will be available to Complidata customers, as will IHS Markit's maritime movement and compliance datasets.

"Advisories, guidelines and regulation across trade are on the rise, requiring practitioners to understand all aspects of a transaction and to identify its risk," explained Guy Sear, VP Risk and Compliance at IHS Markit. "The integration of IHS Markit's maritime and trade datasets into the Complidata trade finance platform will provide customers with big data and artificial intelligence solutions to reduce time-consuming false positives, optimise and digitise business operations and manage risk in a more timely and efficient manner."

 

AFME: Next stage of sustainable finance agenda critical to meeting EU sustainability objectives

The Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) has welcomed the publication by the European Commission of the EU Renewed Sustainable Finance strategy.

"Europe’s leadership on sustainable finance has given rise to several ambitious and comprehensive regulatory proposals," commented Adam Farkas, chief executive of AFME. "Now, the next stages of the sustainable finance agenda will be critical to mobilise private investment on the scale needed to meet the EU’s sustainability objectives.

"A broader, more flexible approach to classifying transition activities would go a long way to helping to accelerate Europe’s pathway to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The recognition in the Renewed Strategy that the current EU Taxonomy framework could better recognise investments for intermediary steps on the pathway towards sustainability is extremely helpful. A robust transition framework should include both activities and entities that are already low carbon, but also be forward-looking and include firms, their assets, and their activities that demonstrate the commitment and potential for transition within scientifically determined thresholds.

"Capital markets will need to play a central role in the green transition. We estimate that 35% of the funding needed to meet the Paris Agreement is required from equity, alongside 44% from loans and 21% in bonds. While the markets for green bonds have seen significant growth in Europe, climate finance needs to scale across all asset classes.  It is important to take a holistic approach that fosters all products and asset classes - including equity and securitisation - that can contribute to mobilising capital resources towards the transition.

"AFME will continue to support a risk sensitive approach to the integration of ESG factors into prudential regulation and we look forward to the work programme in this area. Any specific prudential treatment distinguishing between 'green' or 'brown' assets needs to be consistent with the principles of prudential regulation. This should be done in a dynamic, forward-looking and risk-oriented manner which is based on experience and scientific data, and agreed at an international level as far as possible.

"We welcome the commitment for the EU to continue to cooperate with its partners in international fora to agree on common objectives and principles for taxonomies. The development of regional taxonomies should follow a set of common, globally consistent principles and, as such, the evolution of the EU Taxonomy should take international taxonomy developments into account. International regulatory convergence in ESG reporting is particularly important in the further elaboration of the European reporting framework."