Local financial services consultancy business, Mosaic, has struck a deal with a Toronto-based firm to provide climate-related disclosure tools in the NZ market.
Mosaic will offer NZ clients access to AI-based software developed by Manifest Climate that allows businesses to “conduct gap analyses and peer benchmarking in real-time to align with regulation requirements, eliminating manual research, and gaining a clear view of how their climate data measures against standards and frameworks”, according to a release.
About 200 NZ entities including banks, insurers, most listed companies and licensed fund managers (with $1 billion or more under management) now must publish annual climate reports with the first tranche of compliance documents due soon. The NZ reporting rules, based on the global Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) template, began as of January 1 last year.
Mosaic founder, Myles Allan, said in a statement that the Manifest Climate tools provide “a high level of client benefit” for the NZ market.
“Manifest Climate enables Mosaic to focus on the strategic elements of climate-related disclosure projects by automating the manual work associated with conducting gap analyses and peer benchmarking research,” Allan said in a release. “This translates into unbiased, tailored action plans for our clients, that fast tracks success along their sustainability journey.”
Co-founded in 2015 in Canada by Laura Zizzo and Jeremy Greven, Manifest has landed some big-ticket clients including insurance firm Manulife and US fund manager, Loomis Sayles.
Greven, chief operating officer of the firm, said in the statement that by “combining Manifest Climate’s AI technology with Mosaic’s consulting expertise, we’re equipping companies to meet TCFD regulations efficiently and succeed beyond compliance”.
In another NZ-global tech-related hook-up last week, Pie Funds signed up to use a Bloomberg portfolio analytics system.
The Bloomberg PORT Enterprise software enables Pie to tap into “an integrated end-to-end solution that covers the complete investment lifecycle, empowering them to gain deeper analytical insights on their portfolios and drive future growth”, the release says.
Bloomberg and Pie also collaborated to integrate the PORT system with cloud-based investment data platform, ICS ATHENA.
Among other services, the release says PORT offers “streamlined workflows that include intraday performance monitoring, historical performance attribution, risk forecasting and optimization”.
Mike Taylor, Pie founder, said the addition of PORT would improve efficiency of the $2 billion plus fund manager and KiwiSaver scheme operator.
The Bloomberg service would allow Pie “to respond to changing market dynamics and reporting requirements with confidence”, Taylor said in the release.