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Symphony celebrates industry recognition
See what makes Cloud9 standout in the financial services industry. In this interview between Symphony’s Michael Lynch and WatersTechnology’s Victor Anderson.
August 23, 2024
Symphony’s 2024 So Far: Responsible Business Growth with Security and Compliance in Focus
- Odette Maher
- Community
Symphony is now in its tenth year of developing secure and compliant communications technology for global financial market participants. With over 500,000 users and more than 1300 firms using Symphony solutions, our industry relevance is widely recognized by clients, partners, regulators and journalists.
We kicked off 2024 with a visit to Brussels, really setting the tone for our external engagement for the rest of the year. CEO Brad Levy joined a discussion around the role of capital markets and technology in supporting the energy transition, in the Financing Europe conference, organized by our partner Kreab Worldwide. While in town we made sure to engage with European Union policymakers and industry leaders.
Sustainability
On the sustainability front, Symphony continues its journey with our leadership’s clear conviction that voluntary frameworks are the right approach for us as a privately-owned firm, with an office-based operation in a non-carbon intensive industry. In Q1 2024, we completed our second corporate sustainability assessment through ratings firm EcoVadis with results revealing an increase of 7 points in the overall score (from 53 in 2023 to 60 in 2024) and a reduction in improvement areas. We also published the first iteration of our environmental policy – which outlines the firm’s approach to GHG emissions accounting -, are on track to submit our first United Nations Global Compact Communication on Progress (CoP) later this summer, after joining in 2023, and became a signatory of the Women’s Empowerment Principles.
Media
As a firm, we have seen an uptick in interest from journalists and editors looking to further their coverage on technology, innovation, compliance, AI, big tech and competition. We have shared our leaders’ perspective on these topics as well as on current affairs across global markets. Some highlights from this year include:
- Symphony multiplie les innovations pour renforcer les capacités de ses clients (April 22, 2024) – French financial media outlet L’Agefi highlighted Symphony’s global reach, work with customers in capital markets and the evolution of the firm’s strategy.
- Symphony boosts Cloud9 voice offerings with AI (April 25, 2024) – Nyela Graham from WatersTechnology conveyed Symphony’s journey into the trader voice space from our acquisition of Cloud9 in 2021 to the incorporation of the latest AI-powered tools.
- There could be a middle ground to FCA’s ‘name and shame plans’ (May 21, 2024) – Financial Times specialist publication FT Adviser shared Brad’s perspective on UK regulator Financial Conduct Authority’s so-called ‘name and shame’ proposal.
- US WhatsApp crackdown spreads to global banking regulators (May 24, 2024) Financial News included Symphony’s view on the potential expansion of the WhatsApp regulatory crackdown beyond the United States.
- Symphony Wraps Around the Roots of Financial Services (June 11, 2024) – With CEO Brad Levy at the helm of the firm for 3 years, the impact of our technology to financial markets is palpable. Also the evolution of Symphony’s strategy and value proposition, as he discussed with Markets Media’s Shanny Basar.
Business growth
“We’ve seen the messaging volume on our federated offerings grow by almost 400% since Q1 of 2023,” president and CFO Ben Chrnelich told A-Team Insight in a recent interview, as well as a strong adoption of our trader voice offering. This as a result of our team’s relentless focus on our customers’ workflow needs and a highly relevant product and solutions to financial markets. We have publicly shared that our firm is on its way to profitability in 2024.
Our flagship conference Innovate 2024 took place in New York this year, where chief product officer Michael Lynch and the team partnered with customers to showcase community innovations, including the upcoming interoperability and secure connectivity with Microsoft Teams as well as Symphony’s secure and compliant connection to third party messaging applications such as WhatsApp, WeChat and LINE. Also, our AI transcription and analytics capability for voice traded transactions was showcased, highlighting both real time capture and long term insights.
Symphony announced the opening of offices in Abu Dhabi, UAE and Belfast, Northern Ireland, after working in close partnership with Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) and Invest Northern Ireland (INI). Financial News broke the news about our Middle East office opening in Abu Dhabi (May 8, 2024) while Irish News published exclusively Sweet Symphony of jobs for Belfast (May 28, 2024), an article about Symphony’s bet on Northern Ireland and its talent. Each announcement was supported by local government, regulator and media engagement, client and investor meetings, and attendance to industry events.
The firm has also received a number of industry awards this year, including Best ESG Sentiment Data Provider in the ESG Insight Awards 2024 (A-Team Group) for our Amenity Analytics ESG offering; and Best Solution for Workflow Automation for Cloud9’s Instant Voice in the TradingTech Awards USA 2024 (A-Team Group). On a proud moment – Ben Chrnelich was also recognized with the Champion Award by StreetWise Partners for his contributions over 20+ years in promoting job mobility and training to underserved New York City communities.
The team has participated in relevant industry events, including FIA Boca, TradeTech Paris, Google Next, AIM Congress in Abu Dhabi, Fixed Income Leaders Summit US and ISITC’s annual Securities Operations Summit, among others.
Regulatory affairs
Our team, led by general counsel Corinna Mitchell, has also spent time with regulators discussing the role of appropriate technology to ensure security and compliance (including record-keeping) in what would otherwise be “off-channel” communications, the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), and policymakers’ work to standardize cybersecurity requirements for core tech providers, including the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act (CIRCIA) Reporting Requirements, which Symphony submitted a comment letter for.
Symphony has evolved into a market infrastructure and communications platform for global finance, with messaging, voice, directory and analytics at its core. We will continue to help our customers innovate in financial markets and become more efficient in a secure and compliant way, as well as broaden and solidify our engagement with stakeholders in current and growth markets.
If you have any questions about any of the topics above, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team. You can reach me on Symphony (of course!), LinkedIn or by emailing [email protected].
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