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One-year-old startup the Diamond Standard Co has launched the world’s first fungible diamond commodity product – a universal asset to secure any digital transaction.
“Diamonds are a valuable natural resource, but unusable by institutional investors. Unlike gold and platinum, each diamond is different, so price is negotiable,” explains Cormac Kinney, founder and CEO of Diamond Standard Co. “We created a diamond commodity by grouping sets of diamonds in a fair and transparent way. The sets are fungible, and the diamonds are independently certified, and the key is that they are sourced through a regulated exchange, with market-driven price discovery.”
Diamond
The European Energy Exchange (EEX) increased volumes on its power derivatives markets by 35 per cent to 331.9 TWh in April (April 2018: 246.6 TWh). In particular, volumes traded in the German Phelix-DE product (232.2 TWh, +82 per cent) contributed to this growth.
The markets for France (24.7 TWh, +25 per cent), Italy (46.9 TWh, +21 per cent), Spain (9.5 TWh, +32 per cent) and Central-/South-Eastern Europe (8.9 TWh, +44 per cent) achieved double-digit growth.
In April, EEX introduced order book trading for Greece and, in doing so, extends the existing Trade Registration offering for this market. In April, 78,000
Refinitiv has been appointed as the official calculating agent for the Bank of Thailand’s official Thai Baht spot rate, forward points and implied swap rates.
The new transactions-based benchmark succeeds the previous survey-based benchmark administered and calculated by Refinitiv. Known to market participants as THBFIX, it will be available from 2 May 2019.
Refinitiv will use transaction data from its FX Trading and Matching platforms to calculate the benchmark, with 30 Thailand based banks and brokers participating. The change in methodology from survey-based to transactions-based input data will make the benchmark more robust and better reflect Thai financial markets’
HarbourVest Partners, a global private markets asset manager, has appointed Vinay Mendiratta has joined the firm as a Managing Director. Based in Boston, Mendiratta will focus on business development with distribution partners in the US to help private clients achieve their private markets objectives.
“Over the past decade, wealth management firms have sought greater exposure to private markets for their family office, private bank, wealth management, and institutional clients, and HarbourVest has a long track record of helping them meet their clients’ private market investment objectives,” says John Toomey, Managing Director, HarbourVest Partners. “This is a critical part of our
Global regulatory compliance firm Optima Partners as appointed private equity and hedge fund adviser David Gold as the firm’s Chief Operating Officer (COO).
“Hiring David represents a significant investment in Optima’s growth,” says Optima Partners CEO Jonathan Saxton. “His role will ensure the consistent delivery of the high level of advice and service to all of our clients, as well as the continued robust growth of our firm.”
Gold says: “I am looking forward to working with our global colleagues to help Optima broaden its market leadership and drive successful outcomes for its clients, employees and other stakeholders.”
A Leg To Stand On (ALTSO) is is holding its 2nd Annual Rocktoberfest concert in London on 19 June 2019 when members of the hedge fund and private equity communities will come together for a night of live rock & roll entertainment, with the aim of raising money to provide free orthopaedic care for children in the developing world.
The line-up will feature bands whose performers are moonlighting from their day-jobs in high finance. The firm which raises the most money gets to choose their spot on the bill. The London show mirrors events in New York and Chicago, in
Aegon Asset Management has made two new hires to strengthen its now 14-strong global responsible investment team.
Brunno Maradei joins Aegon Asset Management as Global Head of ESG based in The Hague, the Netherlands and Julius Huttunen joins the company as Responsible Investment Manager, based in Chicago, US. Both will report into Roelie van Wijk-Russchen, Global Head of Responsible Business & Public Affairs.
Maradei joins AAM on the 1st of May from the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg where he was a Senior Investment Officer leading execution teams for project finance deals outside the European Union, focusing on climate-friendly impact
Ideal Prediction, an independent trading analysis and data science company for capital markets, has added Natural Language Processing (NLP) to its automated analytics services.
By incorporating NLP with machine learning, Ideal Prediction’s service empowers clients to create and visualize new analytical graphs in real-time with no coding knowledge.
Prior to NLP, all potential cases required programming, offering only a prescriptive set of limited analytics. By adding NLP, Ideal Prediction enables clients to visualise and analyse calculations beyond those available in an out-of-the-box user interface (UI). NLP provides a flexible structure, with which clients can define for themselves what they want
KRM22, a technology and software investment company that focuses on risk management for capital markets, has appointed Garry Jones as an independent non-executive director of the company.
Jones will replace David Ellis, Independent Non-Executive Director, who notified the Board of his intention to step down from the Board with immediate effect after being with the Company since its IPO in early 2018. Ellis is stepping down to focus on other business commitments and a relocation to the United States.
Jones has over 35 years’ experience in financial services and has been CEO of three of the largest derivatives and
Digital Assets Data, a financial technology and data company focused on the crypto-asset industry, has launched with the support of a USD6 million se round led by Distributed Global, Digital Currency Group, Morgan Creek, Galaxy Digital, Jump Capital, CMT Digital, and Ritholtz Wealth Management CEO Joshua Brown, among others.
Digital Assets Data will now build out its crypto data platform and deliver institutional-grade information and insights to a broad customer base, including crypto hedge funds, family offices, and asset management research firms. The platform, launched in March, helps clients compound their knowledge about the digital asset space and build any
