Red Deer, a financial technology company dedicated to enhancing the performance of active investment managers, has announced a strategic partnership with Instinet Europe Limited to provide an integrated solution to manage research inducement, consumption, valuation, payment and commission management under the MiFID II regime.

Red Deer’s research valuation management solution will attribute, forecast, track and manage budgets for research funding and consumption, integrating with Instinet’s RQ Connect application within its research payment and commission management platform, Plazma, to provide an end-to-end research valuation and payments process.

Commenting on the partnership, Luke Oubridge, CEO Red Deer, said, “A number of Red Deer clients have chosen to work with Instinet to manage their research payments as part of MIFID II research unbundling. Integrating gives them a pain-free and complete end-to-end solution, allowing them to reduce operational overhead and free up resource to focus on other challenges they may face in preparing for the January deadline.”

Red Deer’s research valuation management solution captures and attributes firm research consumption across all channels including email, chat and voice, giving buy-side firms the most accurate view of their research value. This approach has the added advantage of preventing inducement across the firm. Red Deer’s Outlook plugin and mobile application mean that firms can be MIFID II compliant quickly, with minimal disruption to their investment process. Oversight reporting is exceptions-based, offering compliance teams greater transparency and operational efficiencies.

“Instinet is pleased to be working with Red Deer to provide clients a seamless and comprehensive solution for their research management needs through RQ Connect. As part of Instinet’s agency model, our infrastructure allows clients to choose the tools that best match their requirementsas they navigate the current MIFID II regulatory landscape,” said Patrick Gill, Head of Commission Management for Instinet Europe.

Instinet’s RQ Connect enables Research Procurement Management (RPM) systems to transfer research quality assessment data to Plazma. Investment managers can review, edit and confirm this information on their desktops, and seamlessly authorise payments, notably through Instinet Europe Limited’s certified Payment Institution license. RQ Connect unifies outside evaluation and budgeting processes with the established payment facilities of Plazma.