Thomson Reuters Strengthens Eikon MiFID II Research Unbundling Compliance Capabilities with New Applications from Visible Alpha

In partnership with Visible Alpha, integrated solutions enable Eikon buy-side clients to manage research capabilities and compliance more efficiently and effectively

NEW YORK/LONDON, September 12, 2017 – Thomson Reuters, in partnership with Visible Alpha, has launched multiple joint-solutions in its flagship financial desktop Eikon that will help enable financial institutions to further manage impending MiFID II research unbundling requirements, set to be implemented January 3, 2018. These tools, complementing Eikon’s already robust research solutions, allow buy-side professionals to track corporate access and sell-side interactions, manage the research valuation process, review and vote on research provider value as well as manage inducements. All of the following capabilities announced today will be available in Eikon.

Visible Alpha’s ONEaccess Resource Tracking application enables Eikon users to monitor, integrate and analyze their broker interactions and research consumption from research providers in an aggregated manner. By employing a proprietary process, ONEaccess Resource Tracking sources and cleans interactions data from hundreds of contributing brokers and provides transparency into what buy-side clients are consuming.

In addition to ONEaccess Resource Tracking, Thomson Reuters will be offering Visible Alpha’s ONEaccess Broker Vote application within Eikon. With access to Broker Vote, users can populate recommended benchmarks based on weighted interactions data to better understand the value received across all research relationships as well as run a budget-based vote. The third application available in Eikon is Visible Alpha’s ONEaccess Forward Calendar, a configurable calendar of corporate access events sourced from more than 150 research providers. Users can request access to attend events and manage their activity with integration into Outlook and CRM systems.

MiFID II imposes a series of new restrictions and structures on research use by financial institutions, specifically how research is paid for and managed by the institution. The rules effectively eliminate free research or research paid based on specific trading or investing decisions. To help clients navigate these research unbundling challenges, Thomson Reuters Eikon research solutions provide users the ability to objectively assess sell-side analyst quality, manage entitlements to external research, gain insights quicker through improved research discovery, and effectively evaluate a firm’s research team.

“MiFID’s research unbundling regulations will bring about profound changes in the research segment of financial services, fueling the need for new products to be in place so that institutions can manage these changes,” said Mahesh Narayan, head of portfolio management and research, Thomson Reuters. “Partnering with specialized third-parties that enhance existing Eikon capabilities is central to our open platform approach. Adding Visible Alpha’s ONEaccess applications to Eikon brings further value to our already powerful research capabilities such that Eikon clients will now have an unbiased and robust solution to meet their research unbundling needs.”

“In order to ensure compliance with MiFID II regulations, firms must be empowered with the right tools to prepare for and execute on the new requirements,” said Mike Stepanovich, President of Enterprise Services, Visible Alpha. “By partnering with Thomson Reuters and integrating our Resource Tracking, Broker Vote and Forward Calendar applications into Eikon, we are enabling firms with the tools to consume, track and value research content from 450+ providers and achieve compliance in the most streamlined way.”

Thomson Reuters is one of the largest aggregators of real-time research in the world and offers a comprehensive portfolio of research-related products for both the buy-side and sell-side, and recently announced a series of other MiFID II research-related enhancements on Eikon. Thomson Reuters Eikon provides unbiased sell-side analyst performance evaluation focusing on analyst accuracy as well as relative analyst ranking by security and sector. Through Thomson Reuters StarMine investment analytics, buy-side professionals can utilize an analyst score card and rankings to make and/or justify broker section decisions.

Thomson Reuters and Visible Alpha intend to further partner on capabilities that address MiFID II needs including integrated entitlements management.

About Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters is the world’s leading source of news and information for professional markets. Our customers rely on us to deliver the intelligence, technology and expertise they need to find trusted answers. The business has operated in more than 100 countries for more than 100 years. Thomson Reuters shares are listed on the Toronto and New York Stock Exchanges. For more information, visit www.thomsonreuters.com.

Media Contacts

Eric Soderberg
Forefront Communications for Visible Alpha
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Brian Bertsch
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Lemuel Brewster
+1-646-223-5147
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