Partnership builds upon several existing years of collaboration between the two firms
London-headquartered data analytics solutions provider IHS Markit has acquired Catena Technologies, a Singapore-based regulatory trade reporting firm, IHS Markit announced in a statement earlier this week.
The company did not disclose terms of the acquisition but said that the deal would not impact its earnings.
“The acquisition of Catena is a logical extension of IHS Markit’s strategy to provide comprehensive solutions that enable our customers to fulfill their global regulatory compliance needs,” Senior Vice President and Head of Platforms and Regulatory Compliance at IHS Markit John Barneson said in the statement.
Founded in 2002 as a fintech consultancy, Catena pivoted to providing software-as-a-service (SaaS) trade reporting solutions in 2014, with a focus on helping Asia Pacific clients meet cross-jurisdiction regulatory trade reporting compliance obligations.
Its TRACE Reporting platform provides cross-asset coverage, valuation and collateral reporting, and reconciliation across G20 jurisdictions, including the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Hong Kong and Singapore are the two largest international financial centers in the Asia Pacific region.
“As part of IHS Markit, we will be able to offer customers a seamless, single-vendor solution that integrates transaction reporting with other post-trade and compliance workflows,” Catena CEO Aaron Hallmark said in the statement.
He also noted that customers will now have access to streamlined and cost-effective trade reporting services as a result of the integration.
Head of Asia Pacific for MarkitSERV at IHS Markit Julian Chesser noted that Catena and MarkitSERV have been collaborating for several years to support MarkitSERVS enterprise clients such as investment firms and banks. MarkitSERV is an end-to-end over-the-counter trade processing and workflow solution provided by IHS Markit.
IHS Markit won the Best Solution in Trade Reporting award and an Outstanding Project award for Risk Calculation in the 2nd Regulation Asia Awards for Excellence 2019. The solution that bagged the awards, Markit Integrated Reporting, was developed in collaboration with Catena and is part of the MarkitSERV line up.
“Bringing the expertise and technology from Catena into MarkitSERV and our other compliance platforms will enable us to provide even more comprehensive and efficient trade reporting services to customers globally,” Chesser said in the statement.
Regulation in trade reporting took large steps ahead after the 2008 global financial crisis that pushed world economies into deep recessions, making regulatory trade compliance a powerful new industry. Similarly, the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to alter compliance requirements across countries.
As economic activities take a hit due to COVID-19, the fact that countries have entered slowdowns and recessions is bound to reflect on trade regulations of different regions, making it fair to expect changes in cross-jurisdiction regulatory compliance and giving the industry an upside in grim times.
Header image by Jason Briscoe on Unsplash
