J.P. Morgan, Blackrock tap Saphyre for AI securities account opening

By Sunniva Kolostyak

J.P. Morgan’s Securities Services and Blackrock have both partnered with artificial intelligence platform provider Saphyre to digitise account opening and speed up trading for buy-side firms.

Saphyre, a FinTech with US patent-approved AI, is looking to help buy-side firms, custodians and broker-dealers eliminate manual processes and improve scalability, as well as provide an efficient process for opening accounts.

By implementing the platform, J.P. Morgan’s Securities Services and BlackRock both will get access to solutions enabling seamless communication between clients, custodians and broker-dealers that eliminates emails and phone calls. It provides real-time capabilities that display the status and next steps, action ownership and provide a transparent audit trail.

The implementation result is an accelerated account opening experience through digitisation of account information inputs, pre-population of redundant data including market-specific documentation, and elimination of manual processes and wet-ink signatures, Saphyre said in an announcement.

Commenting, Naveen TV, Managing Director, J.P. Morgan’s Securities Services, said: “Saphyre has been instrumental in transforming the account opening experience

for our clients. J.P. Morgan was an early adopter of Saphyre and is now live in production after successfully testing its value proposition for over 6 months. Saphyre’s cutting-edge technology coupled with J.P. Morgan’s industry-leading operating model and workflow tools allows us to continue to drive industry change that positions ourselves and our clients for the future.”

Liliane Ancona, Managing Director, BlackRock added: “With Saphyre, we’re reducing hours of work down to minutes and ensuring our funds are ready to trade more quickly all on a single platform. With powerful workflow features and enhanced visibility into the account opening lifecycle, Saphyre has enabled BlackRock to eliminate manual processes to support the account opening workflow across custodians and broker-dealers.”

Also commenting, Gabino Roche, CEO, Saphyre said: “The combined industry expertise provided by J.P. Morgan and BlackRock has helped Saphyre leverage its patented technology to unlock a new paradigm for account opening, taking a historically manual process and digitizing it for the benefit of buy-side firms, custodians and broker-dealers. The net result is that buy-side clients can be ready to trade more quickly and eliminate manual processes that lead to operational cost and inefficiency.”