Ancoa, provider of contextual surveillance and insightful analytics for exchanges, regulators, and buy & sell-side firms, today announced that Convergex, an agency-focused global brokerage and trading related services provider, has deployed Ancoa’s market surveillance platform to monitor all trading activity across its domestic (U.S.) and international cash equities and options brokerage businesses.
The deployment monitors trading activity of all lit and dark venues including Millennium, Convergex’s proprietary ATS.
Convergex delivers comprehensive solutions that include its award winning ETF Direct® platform and algorithms, global high-touch and electronic trading, options trading and technologies, prime brokerage services, global clearing, commission management, corporate access and more, to nearly 3,000 clients accessing over 100 global market centers. Convergex has international coverage of options and cash equities in approximately 6,500 symbols.
Preventing market abuse by timely detecting manipulation attempts and other potentially improper trading activity has become a regulatory requirement for market participants across all major jurisdictions. Global regulatory efforts to uphold the integrity of the markets and protect end investors have seen the introduction of stricter market abuse rules and regulations. Trading firms in the U.S., as well as internationally, need to demonstrate to their regulators that they have the surveillance capabilities necessary to prevent inappropriate trading activity and take the necessary steps to investigate these abuses.
Convergex has chosen to deploy Ancoa’s market surveillance platform across its U.S. and international operations following a rigorous due diligence and vendor review process. Ancoa’s surveillance capabilities and strong visualization tools enable Convergex’s global management team to carry out its oversight functions in a coordinated and efficient way.
Furthermore, Convergex’s global compliance team can now further comply with U.S. and international market abuse regulations and better monitor the ATS market participants via one central platform.
Convergex’s cloud based deployment running on Amazon Web Services (AWS) is certificated to ISO 27001 information security standards. AWS provides a managed and secured infrastructure environment while the deployment ensures cyber security is managed at every level in a secure, efficient and cost effective way.
Ann Neidenbach, Chief Information Officer of Convergex, said: “We chose Ancoa because of its leading edge technology and robust trading surveillance capabilities to support our global multi-asset requirements. Furthermore, Convergex is ahead of the curve by migrating to Ancoa’s cloud based solution to address our surveillance needs in the most comprehensive and cost efficient way.”
Niko Mykkanen, Partner Lead, AWS EMEA, added: “AWS helps financial organizations to build secure and compliant applications. We are excited to see customers such as Convergex working with AWS Technology Partner Ancoa to realize the benefits of the cloud.”
Stefan Hendrickx, Founder and Executive Director, Ancoa, concluded: “We are thrilled to work with the Convergex compliance and management teams both in London and New York. We understand the regulatory pressures to prevent market abuse and uphold market integrity, and we tailored our platform to suit Convergex’s surveillance needs. We are confident that Ancoa’s monitoring capabilities will enable compliance teams to fulfil their regulatory and surveillance obligations with confidence and also provide valuable insights to the Convergex management team.”