Financial markets data and infrastructure company Refinitiv has announced it has formed a new strategic partnership with software giant Microsoft. The partnership will give people who work in the financial sector greater connectivity and insight into their markets and customers, and help them make critical business decisions.

Refinitiv said it is creating new products and go to market services on Microsoft Azure, while expanding its use of Microsoft 365 and Teams, to help the financial community connect, collaborate and communicate.

The company said that’s critical in a global industry that’s expected to grow to $26.5 trillion by 2022. In the UK alone, the financial services sector contributes £132 billion to the economy, 6.9% of total economic output, and accounts for 1.1 million jobs, 3.1% of the total.

The partnership with Microsoft will allow Refinitiv’s customers to capitalise on the growth in the sector.

David Craig, CEO at Refinitiv, said:

“Microsoft’s scale and its integrated product suite provides important opportunities for customers to connect and collaborate. We see huge benefits in working with Microsoft and its productivity tools to improve efficiency, collaboration and communication across the financial community, especially as our customers harness automation and reimagine the future of work in a digital, post-COVID environment.”

Refinitiv distributes 55 billion updates on financial markets every day, and up to 176 billion market messages per day through the Covid crisis, from approximately 150,000 data sources and holds information on 68,000 public companies. It has two petabytes of pricing data stretching back over 20 years, as well as 60 petabytes of data that customers use to inform their decision making. In 2018, Refinitiv launched a product for investment managers called QA Direct in the Cloud, helping customer rapidly surface insight from huge range of Refinitiv’s global market and referential data securely hosted in Azure.

This fits seamlessly with Refinitiv’s recent investment in and strategic partnership with ModuleQ, a Microsoft partner that delivers AI-driven news, and market updates to professionals directly within Teams. Refinitiv’s strategic partnership with ModuleQ has proven to be critical during this period of increased virtual collaboration for companies globally, by offering a tool which helps employees focus on the information they need, right when they need it.

“We have seen companies increasingly use our messaging services, as effective collaboration has been so important through the Covid crisis,” added Ben Shepherd, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer At Refinitiv. “When you add tools within that collaboration platform to help people surface information quickly, you create a seamless experience that brings the best of technology and data together with the human expertise needed to move markets forward.  To date, financial services has had too few sophisticated channels for collaboration.”

The partnership strengthens Microsoft’s commitment to the financial services sector. Its tools and services are helping companies manage risk, drive real-time payments, modernise operations against financial crime, deliver personalised customer experiences, and much more.

Cindy Rose, Chief Executive of Microsoft UK, said:

“We’re thrilled to be partnering with Refinitiv to drive real innovation and transformation in the financial services sector. Through the powerful combination of our shared skills, experience and technology, we can help organisations unlock valuable insights from their data and spark a new level of productivity, collaboration and communication.”

Jean-Phillippe Courtois, Executive Vice-president and President of Global Sales, Marketing and Operations at Microsoft, said:

“As the pace of digital transformation has accelerated across all industries, enabling companies to empower their people and their customers with the right technology has never been more important. Increased access to data and insights will be critical to how we think about agility and resilience as we emerge from crisis mode into reimagining businesses and inspiring economic reset.”