Apex Fintech Solutions Inc., an innovation launchpad for the global investment ecosystem, announced a multi-year strategic partnership with Google Cloud to accelerate the launch of the Apex Ascend investment platform and bring trading, clearing, and custody into the modern era. Through the partnership, Apex will leverage Google Cloud’s suite of cloud computing services that deliver an integrated AI stack, robust infrastructure, and comprehensive tools for data, security, and communication.

The Apex and Google Cloud partnership is focused on bringing cloud innovation, modernization, scalability, reliability, and security to capital markets that have historically relied on less flexible legacy custodian, clearing, and trading platforms.

To this end, Apex launched Apex Ascend, the first next-generation, cloud-native investment infrastructure built on Google Cloud, in January 2024. Ascend provides a suite of modern capabilities that enables fintech, wealth management, and institutional clients to go from idea to launch seamlessly and confidently. It includes a built-in real-time ledger, real-time account opening and funding, self-service data analytics — plus robust automations like corporate action updates, rebalancing, order management, and trade execution.

“We’re thrilled to collaborate with Google Cloud because we’re creating a powerful synergy that not only accelerates innovation but also sets new standards for the industry,” said Bill Capuzzi, CEO of Apex Fintech Solutions. “We’ve reduced the lengthy wait times that plague financial services data processing, allowing clients to access insights In real time for swift and informed decision-making.”

“Apex approached us with a desire to enhance financial infrastructure capabilities for its clients, focusing on scalability, efficiency, data sensitivity, and innovation,” said Zac Maufe, Global Head of Regulated Industries, Google Cloud. “With Apex Ascend built on Google Cloud, Apex is providing its clients with the insights and tools they need to stay ahead in today’s dynamic markets — all with security at its core.”

Apex has leveraged many existing Google Cloud services to provide valuable services to Ascend users, such as:

• AlloyDB: Google Cloud’s fully managed PostgreSQL-compatible, enterprise-grade database service allows Ascend to handle demanding enterprise workloads with critical accuracy and resilience, including those that require high transaction throughput, large data sizes, or multiple read replicas. Ascend users benefit from avoiding costly licensing while leveraging the deep engineering integrations that enable it to surpass the performance limitations of traditional self-managed PostgreSQL. Additionally, Ascend users benefit from turnkey high availability and disaster recovery capabilities. AlloyDB supports the real-time Apex Ledger in crucial operations such as transaction storage, event processing, and functions — including clearing, custody, trade management, risk analysis, and more — that help clients transition away from shadow ledgers.
• BigQuery: BigQuery, Google Cloud’s gen AI-ready unified data platform, enables delivery of high volumes of data built with security at its core and more. Ascend needed a way to deliver petabytes of highly sensitive data to internal and external users in near real-time while building scalable privacy-centric reporting which can be executed through BigQuery. BigQuery’s row- and column-level security and ability to tag sensitive data gives Ascend the confidence to provide direct access to their curated dataset as soon as they are created. This includes giving clients access to use, pivot, and leverage the massive data sets to help them build and operate their businesses.
• Looker and Looker Studio: Google Cloud’s business intelligence platform, Looker, and its Looker Studio self-service tools have been adapted in Apex Insights for use by Apex clients. Ascend provides advanced business intelligence capabilities, including on-demand self-service analytics that can uncover meaningful insights, help mitigate risk, provide investment and business data to drive strategic planning, and consolidate reporting technology.
• Vertex AI: Google Cloud’s Vertex AI is a fully managed, unified AI development platform for building and using generative AI. Apex used Vertex AI to build Ask Ascend, a reliable, secure, and scalable AI assistant. Ask Ascend supports integration with Ascend and helps developers and operations professionals by answering queries about API specifications and documentation, software development kits (SDKs), help files, code, and more. Ask Ascend will be available in the following regions: North America, South America, Asia, Oceania (Australia and surrounding countries), and Africa.

Apex Ascend has seen strong adoption from U.S. and global broker-dealer, wealth management, and other financial services clients. Thanks to the developer-focused APIs, SDKs, and Ask Ascend, some Ascend users have been able to onboard in as few as six weeks.