Goldman Sachs taps MSCI for risk data and analytics

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. announced a new integration with MSCI Inc. Monday that provides access to data and analytics across both Goldman Sachs Marquee and MSCI RiskManager, the companies’ platforms for institutional clients. 

The collaboration means MSCI’s risk factor models are now accessible through Goldman Sachs Marquee, and MSCI clients are now able to access Goldman Sachs’ volatility data through MSCI RiskManager, for “greater precision” in risk management, according to the announcement. Goldman Sachs’ volatility data is based on proprietary pricing models. 

MSCI’s risk factor models will be available via Goldman Sachs APIs and GS Quant, an open-source Python tool kit designed by the firm’s quantitative analysts to quickly integrate data. GS Quant provides a programmatic environment to interact with Goldman Sachs’ data analytics tools and MSCI’s risk factor models in a scalable manner. The models will also be accessible via Marquee’s portfolio analytics user interface. 

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“Through this collaboration we are enabling clients to simplify workflows across portfolio design, construction, and risk management,” Jorge Mina, head of analytics at MSCI, said in a statement. “This will empower them to translate data into actionable insights.”  

The collaboration comes on the heels of Goldman Sachs’ first-quarter earnings call, when CEO David Solomon made it clear that the investment bank is focusing on expanding offerings for access to cryptocurrencies to institutional investors only. 

While Goldman Sachs revealed its interest in offering Bitcoin to wealth management clients earlier this month, putting pressure on other Wall Street banks to follow suit, the investment bank remains focused on providing a more “basic set” of financial services while it builds out Marcus, its consumer banking digital platform, Solomon said during the earnings call in April. 

“Obviously, we’re monitoring this all very quickly, we have a plan at the moment to build a digital bank that’s offering an array of integrated basic services in a completely digital, frictionless platform,” Solomon said. “We’re extremely focused on that, at the moment, we’re not focused on offering a crypto wallet.”