Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE: ICE), an international provider of data, tech and market infrastructure, has announced the launch of a data solution for the European Union Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (EU SFDR).
By requiring more transparency and standardization in the products offered by asset managers, the EU SFDR is designed “to help investors compare among the growing number of investments with sustainable objectives.”
To achieve this goal, the EU SFDR “requires financial market participants and financial advisors, at the firm-level and product-level, to identify and disclose sustainable impacts and whether and how each financial product considers enumerated Principal Adverse Impacts (PAIs), as defined in the Technical Standards recently adopted by the European Commission.”
To aid their clients’ efforts to meet their obligations under the EU SFDR, ICE’s SFDR PAI Solution offers users event-triggered updates “for all of the mandatory adverse sustainability indicators applicable to investments in companies, sovereigns and supranationals.”
The EU’s PAI regime requires specifically “formatted disclosure on ESG-related indicators, including greenhouse gas emissions, board gender diversity, and energy consumption ratios, which are available in a conveniently formatted file or web viewing tool to clients as part of ICE’s SFDR PAI Solution.”
The service allows customers “to link equity and fixed income securities to the closest disclosing corporate entity, offering users a way to quickly match a security to the nearest parent entity with disclosed data.”
Elizabeth King, President of ESG and Chief Regulatory Officer at ICE, stated:
“The transparency ambitions of the EU SFDR places new demands on asset managers and investment advisers. ICE’s SFDR PAI Solution offers updated, granular values for the SFDR’s adverse sustainability indicators needed by market participants to meet SFDR requirements.”
PAI disclosure is expected “to affect a meaningful portion of global asset managers, asset owners, portfolio managers and financial advisors with customers in the EU.”
ICE’s solution collects, calculates and normalizes data “into formats closely aligned with the regulatory technical standards for ease of use by clients.”
As noted in the update, ICE solutions help customers “meet various sustainable finance regulatory requirements across geographies and asset classes.”
As mentioned in a release, Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. is a Fortune 500 company that designs, builds and operates digital networks “to connect people to opportunity.”
They “provide financial technology and data services across major asset classes that offer our customers access to mission-critical workflow tools that increase transparency and operational efficiencies.”
They operate exchanges, “including the New York Stock Exchange, and clearing houses that help people invest, raise capital and manage risk across multiple asset classes.”
Their comprehensive fixed income data services and execution capabilities “provide information, analytics and platforms that help our customers capitalize on opportunities and operate more efficiently.”
At ICE Mortgage Technology, they are “transforming and digitizing the U.S. residential mortgage process, from consumer engagement through loan registration.”
Together, they “transform, streamline and automate industries to connect [their] customers to opportunity.”
