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With an eye to speeding up integrating risk and compliance tools, US investment and services firm Brown Brothers Harriman & Co has launched BBH Connectors, a group of third-party providers that bring expertise in areas such as ESG data, insurance accounting, class-action recovery services, and AI.

The Connectors program is being launched with four unaffiliated external firms which also highlight BBH's in-house technologies. The firm says that the new services can be provided together or separately from custody and administration services.

The launch group of external partners includes:
Clearwater Analytics -- providing insurance and reinsurance companies with a software as a service (SaaS) platform for daily accounting, compliance, performance, risk reporting, and analytics.

Financial Recovery Technologies - providing support for issues associated with class action claims through a host of governance and recovery shareholder litigation solutions.

IdealRatings - integrating ESG factors across client operating models.

OnCorps - helping clients apply emerging technology to their business; handling predictable manual-intensive calculations and tasks.

“These four firms are the first cohort of providers for what will become an open architecture platform of solutions, which solve some of the most pressing challenges our clients face right now," said Joshua Fine, head of data services at BBH.

The operating model is enabled for multiple service providers that can adapt as their strategy evolves, the firm said. 

“We don’t believe that any single provider is going to have a monopoly on good ideas, nor do we think any one provider can manufacture all of the solutions asset managers and financial institutions would expect to leverage,” Chris Remondi, BBH partner and global head of relationship management.

“In this environment, it’s all about flexibility, and we are excited to facilitate choice on behalf of our clients,” he said.

The firm operates globally from offices in New York, Boston, Beijing, Charlotte, Chicago, Dublin, Grand Cayman, Hong Kong, Jersey City, Kraków, London, Luxembourg, Nashville, Philadelphia, Tokyo, Wilmington and Zürich.