The latest technology news in the wealth management sector from around the world.

Citigroup
Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions, part of Citigroup, has announced its creation and piloting of Citi Token Services for cash management and trade finance.

The service uses blockchain and smart contract technologies to deliver digital asset solutions for institutional clients, the firm said in a statement. Citi Token Services will integrate tokenized deposits and smart contracts into Citi’s global network, upgrading core cash management and trade finance capabilities. 

The firm believes that institutional clients need always-on, programmable financial services, consequently Citi Token Services will provide cross-border payments, liquidity, and automated trade finance solutions 24/7.  

“Digital asset technologies have the potential to upgrade the regulated financial system by applying new technologies to existing legal instruments and well-established regulatory frameworks,” Shahmir Khaliq, global head of services, said. 

“The development of Citi Token Services is part of our journey to deliver real-time, always-on, next-generation transaction banking services to our institutional clients. This development goes hand-in-hand with our industry-leading work on the Regulated Liability Network to create interoperable digital asset solutions on a multi-bank basis,” Khaliq added. 

Citi said it worked with Maersk and a canal authority to digitize a solution that serves the same purpose as bank guarantees and letters of credit in the trade finance ecosystem. The pilot demonstrated programmable transfer of tokenized deposits that provided instant payments to service providers via smart contracts. 

“We are pleased to have collaborated with Citi in the successful test pilots for the guarantee solution using digitized tokens and smart contracts,” Marie-Laure Martin, regional treasury manager for the Americas at Maersk, said. 

Citi Token Services has also been applied to a global cash management pilot, enabling clients to transfer liquidity between Citi branches on a 24/7 basis. 

Citi is a banking partner for institutions with cross-border needs, a wealth management specialist and a personal bank in its home market of the US. It conducts business in nearly 160 countries and jurisdictions, providing corporations, governments, investors, institutions and individuals with a range of financial products and services. 

Dow Jones 
Dow Jones Risk & Compliance has rolled out an artificial intelligence solution to fight financial crime and manage risks.

The firm’s RiskCenter Advanced Screening and Monitoring uses risk data, machine learning and AI technologies to optimize anti-money laundering, sanctions and anti-corruption compliance, Dow Jones said in a statement this week. 

The offering brings “greater transparency to risk management workflows, enabling financial institutions and corporations to screen customers and third parties at speed and scale,” the firm said.

The new solution is an example of how AI, while it has prompted concerns about new sources of cybersecurity threats and problems, is also seen to offer defenses and ways of spotting valuable patterns. (See articles here and here on the intersection of AI and wealth management.)

“As the legislative landscape becomes increasingly complex, organizations need to be able to identify and evaluate risk quickly and effectively,” Joel Lange, general manager of risk and research at Dow Jones, said.

ASAM said it takes information from multiple data sources, including Dow Jones’s proprietary structured risk data and unstructured text from thousands of licenced news sources on the Factiva business intelligence platform.

The launch of ASAM adds to Dow Jones’s strategic partnership with Ripjar following its minority equity investment in January 2023. The two companies have worked together since 2018 to help financial institutions and large corporations thwart criminals.