Refinitiv expands in Mena, launches sentiment feed in Japan

Refinitiv, formerly the Financial & Risk business of Thomson Reuters, is expanding its footprint in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) by adding Sunday trading to its equities platform, enabling clients around the world to access a range of markets in the region.

Separately, the firm announced that it is set to provide market-trend information based on MarketPsych Indices – which analyse news and social media in real time across 2,000 top global sites and 800 financial social media sites – to Japan Post Bank (JPB), a leading bank in Japan.

Redi is an execution-management system and cross-asset trading platform that facilitates equities, futures and options trading with more than 200 brokers in approximately 80 countries.

As short selling emerges across Mena markets, Refinitiv believes the advanced screening and short locate functionality of its Redi platform offers clients the ability to hedge their positions more effectively.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia-based investment manager Riyad Capital has since opted to use Redi to enhance its trading capabilities.

“Redi is a cost-effective, compliant and advanced solution for trade execution across all exchange-traded instruments in Mena. The advanced and unique risk functionality of Redi enables clients in the region to effectively navigate trade execution by reducing trading errors,” says Nadim Najjar, managing director for Mena at Refinitiv.

Redi is a cost-effective, compliant and advanced solution for trade execution across all exchange-traded instruments in Mena

Nadim Najjar, Refinitiv

Redi gives clients the ability to optimise execution of complex orders, as well as monitoring live profit and loss on existing positions – an advantage for the higher commission rates and increasing risk of managing diverse portfolios in Mena. Additionally, it automates trade execution and feeds trading activity seamlessly to back-office systems, fund administrators and custodians.

“Delivering a truly global, cross-asset trading platform requires expanding our capabilities across all regions – in both developed and emerging markets,” says Michael Chin, co-head of trading at Refinitiv. 

Meanwhile, Refinitiv’s market information feed to Japan Post Bank will help the bank to manage information flows and gain insights that can be translated into actionable decisions for its clients. The data provided is designed to be incorporated into quantitative and qualitative processes, with a view to discerning patterns affecting markets and businesses. The feed also offers a text analytics engine, which uses patented natural language-processing software.

Actionable insights

“MarketPsych Indices help to understand complex market trends through world news sentiment analysis tools that turn today’s vast amounts of unstructured data into actionable insights to maximise investor returns and spot event risk,” says Debra Walton, chief customer proposition officer at Refinitiv.

“Refinitiv is delighted to be a part of efforts that Japan Post Bank is implementing to assist its customers and support the financial community in Japan,” she adds.

Thomson Reuters’ Financial & Risk unit changed its name to Refinitiv recently, after completing a partnership deal with a consortium of investors led by Blackstone, a private equity firm. Blackstone now owns 55% of the new business, while Thomson Reuters retains 45%.