State Street Launches Digital Division | Chief Investment Officer

State Street is launching State Street Digital, a new digital division that the financial services firm said will build on its current digital capabilities and expand to include cryptocurrency, central bank digital currency, blockchain, and tokenization.

The new division will be helmed by Nadine Chakar, head of State Street Global Markets, who will report to State Street Chief Operating Officer (COO) Lou Maiuri. Replacing Chakar as head of State Street Global Markets will be Tony Bisegna, global head of portfolio solutions, FX sales and trading, and research for State Street Global Markets. Bisegna will assume the new role Sept. 1.

“The financial industry is transforming to a digital economy, and we see digital assets as one of the most significant forces impacting our industry over the next five years,” Ron O’Hanley, chairman and CEO of State Street Corporation, said in a statement. “Digital assets are quickly becoming integrated into the existing framework of financial services, and it is critical we have the tools in place to provide our clients with solutions for both their traditional investment needs as well as their increased digital needs.”

The company also said it will upgrade its GlobalLink technology platform into a digital multi-asset platform that will be a key part of State Street Digital. The firm’s goal is to grow the platform into a multi-asset platform to support crypto assets, among other asset classes, and to create new liquidity venues for clients and investors.

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In April, State Street was tapped to be the administrator of a planned Bitcoin-backed exchange-traded note initiated by a subsidiary of Iconic Funds, which manages and issues crypto asset index investment products. The note will be listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. And in March, State Street was appointed the fund administrator and transfer agent of the VanEck Bitcoin Trust, a new Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) that claims to be the first US-listed ETF providing exposure to Bitcoin.

“We have been developing a number of digital capabilities and other solutions, as well as partnering and investing in the infrastructure that forms the foundation of State Street Digital,” Chakar said in a statement. “State Street has a major role to play in the evolution of digital market infrastructure and this new division will help us bring our expertise and resources to the conversation.”

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Tags: Blockchain, Central Bank, Cryptocurrency, digital currency, Lou Maiuri, Nadine Chakar, State Street, State Street Digital, tokenization

The €499 billion ($607.6 billion) Dutch pension giant ABP, Europe’s largest public sector pension by assets under management (AUM), has joined several other European institutional investors this week in pledging to decarbonize its portfolio by joining the Paris Aligned Investment Initiative’s Net Zero Asset Owner Commitment.

The Paris Aligned Investment Initiative is a collaboration among global investors to align their portfolios and activities to the goals of the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit the increase in global temperature this century to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The investors will use the Net Zero Investment Framework to meet their decarbonization goals.

Also signing up to the framework with ABP were UK conservation charity The National Trust, the Church of Sweden, the South Yorkshire Pension Fund, the Wiltshire Pension Fund, and TPT Retirement Solutions. The six new signatories join 38 asset owners and asset managers representing $8.5 trillion in assets that are already using the framework, according to the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), which established the Paris Aligned Investment Initiative in 2019.

Under the asset owner commitment, the pension funds aim to decarbonize their investment portfolios by 2050 or sooner and increase investment in climate solutions. They are also required to set interim targets for decarbonization and investment, undertake policy advocacy and engagement, and vote in line with net-zero goals. Meanwhile, the framework provides metrics and methodologies for four asset classes—sovereign bonds, listed equities, corporate fixed income, and real estate—with private equity and infrastructure to be added in the near future.

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“Climate change is one of the biggest issues facing the world today. We at ABP are taking actions in our responsible investment policy to counter it,” Loek Sibbing, an ABP board member, said in a statement. “The Net Zero Investment Framework commitment will help ABP on our pathway to an effective net-zero investment strategy.”

The Paris Aligned Investment Initiative also said it is working with the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF), a group of financial institutions developing a way to measure and disclose greenhouse gas emissions of loans and investments. The two groups will develop greenhouse gas accounting methodologies for asset classes such as sovereign bonds, accounting for carbon removals/sequestered emissions and technical issues such as aggregation of Scope 3 emissions.

In June 2020, ABP pledged to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in its overall portfolio by 40% compared with 2015, invest €15 billion in sustainable and affordable energy, and invest 20% of total assets in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) all by 2025. It said also set a goal to stop investing in coal for generating electricity in OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] countries by 2030.