GLMX’s technology platform allows participants to negotiate and execute securities financing transactions and is used by more than 140 buy- and sell-side institutions globally.  

The firm’s new initiative with FlexTrade’s FlexONE OEMS and FlexTRADER EMS will offer mutual clients a solution for managing the entire trade lifecycle, from order execution to post-trade compliance and reporting.  

In addition, mutual clients are expected to gain increased control and efficiency through customisable and shared pre- and post-trade workflows. 

“Client demand for cross-market efficiency is a primary driver for GLMX to deliver new technologies and connectivity,” said Andy Wiblin, chief operating officer at GLMX.   

“By partnering with FlexTrade, we aim to support our clients’ trading, risk management, and operational resilience efforts globally.”  

Read more: FlexTrade and LoopFX integration set to optimise FX trading capabilities 

The newly created workflows will enable trading teams to automate complex order routing and allocation strategies, minimise manual errors, and achieve regulatory compliance.  

The API integration is available for deployment immediately by mutual FlexTrade and GLMX clients. 

“We’re delighted to make our new integration to the GLMX platform available for FlexTrade’s global asset management and hedge fund community,” said Satish Ramanath, SVP, buy-side, APAC at FlexTrade Systems.   

“Working together with GLMX, we’ve provided our clients with a seamless and efficient means of accessing differentiated liquidity within their existing workflows.” 

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The FlexOMS solution will also serve as the full-service technology platform for JonesTrading’s outsourced trading offering.

JonesTrading partners with more than 1,500 institutions and hedge funds and its offering includes a wide range of liquidity sources, electronic trading and execution management services worldwide.

In Q3 2023, JonesTrading stated that it identified the need to replace its incumbent sell-side OMS solution which led to the selection of FlexTrade’s multi-asset sell-side trading order management solution, FlexOMS, to expand its equities, outsourced and electronic trading desks both now and moving forward.

Read more: In conversation with… FlexTrade’s Andy Mahoney

“[…] Crucial in our decision was selecting a partner that could value-add in addition to the technology by offering the services and long-term relationships that we need to continue to build out our service offerings,” said Jack Garceau, chief technology officer at JonesTrading.  

“To continue growing, FlexTrade was that reliable partner that could meet our business needs from a technology perspective and deliver in the contracted time frame that the project demanded.”

The project began last year with FlexOMS encompassing JonesTrading’s equities, electronic trading and outsourced trading desk.

Through the use of FlexOMS’s open architecture and API-technology, the solution also connected the entirety of JonesTrading’s vital downstream systems including reporting, accounting, best execution and finance systems, within the given deadline.

“Our open-architecture, client-first approach has delivered cutting-edge trading technology and seamless straight-through processing to JonesTrading’s multiple business lines,” said Rajiv Kedia, principal and associate founder at FlexTrade Systems.

“We look forward to partnering further with JonesTrading to optimise and expand their use of FlexOMS to other business areas.” 

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Fixed income ETFs have continued to prove their worth as an extremely flexible product for investors. They’ve enabled market participants to transfer risk quickly, even when the underlying bond market is restrained. ETFs have several different use cases for investors, including but not limited to cash equitisation and tax management, hedging vehicles and lower impact ways to express short-term tactical views on the market. All of these use cases should continue to proliferate next year, especially as we see the industry trend towards a heightened focus on trading costs, the rise of multi-asset trading and the continued liquidity demands.

Steve Toland, co-founder, TransFICC 

Over the past few years automated trading has grown slowly in fixed income, but we expect 2024 to be the year when this really accelerates. All trading firms are looking for increased efficiencies, but many workflows have been seen as too complex to automate, meaning that manual trading persists in many parts of fixed income. This is no longer the case, as technology is flexible enough to follow any workflow currently performed by a person. Credit trading provides a good example of the benefits, where RFQ negotiation and trading can all be automated. Moving smaller trades to an automated process will improve response times, increase the number of trades dealt, and allow traders to focus on larger more profitable deals.

Legislation will also feature highly as firms prepare for DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act), where compliance is expected by early 2025. DORA applies to more than 22,000 financial entities in the EU. Importantly, it also applies to technology providers in the EU, as well as those supporting EU entities from elsewhere. The aim is to strengthen the financial sector’s resilience to technology-related incidents and introduces very specific and prescriptive requirements, like having robust measures and controls on systems, tools and third parties, and having the right operational continuity plans, while continuously testing their effectiveness.   

Vincent Grandjean, co-founder and chief executive officer, Propellant 

As 2024 unfolds, the fixed income market landscape is experiencing a rapid transformation, driven by both technological advancements and regulatory changes. A key focus in this evolving arena is the enhancement of transparency and the efficient utilisation of data. A significant development is the integration of unique product identifiers, marking a stride towards standardisation in market transparency. Yet, this contrasts with regional divergences, especially in the UK and Europe, where transparency thresholds and reporting requirements vary. Navigating these diverse regulations requires a meticulous approach.

The transformative power of big data is also coming to the fore. With an abundance of data now available, there’s a shift towards using these vast datasets to inform pre-trade decision-making, thereby enhancing market strategies and risk assessment. Moreover, as technology increasingly becomes central to data processing, the industry faces rising costs and complexities in maintaining such infrastructures. This has led to a trend towards outsourcing to balance efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Additionally, the application of AI in extracting actionable insights from complex datasets is gaining momentum. This trend is expected to provide a competitive edge in the market. Overall, the fixed income markets are set to become more informed, efficient, and dynamic, navigating this evolving landscape with a renewed focus on clarity and strategic foresight.

Venky Vemparala, global fixed income product manager, FlexTrade Systems

This year saw a rapidly evolving fixed income EMS space, and in 2024, we expect innovation to continue at a lightning pace. Over the next year, I envision automation as a central theme, with data and analytics being adjacent solid themes. The buy-side will continue to push for efficiency in managing their trading blotters. In turn, venues and platforms will respond with increasingly rich automation functionalities, each with a distinct set of workflows, which is where an EMS is now becoming a crucial tool on bond trading desks to aggregate. 

The buy-side will see additional value and optimise their overall trading workflows by opening the lifecycle of the venue’s automation via API and touchpoints to achieve more granular access and overall control of the automation functionality. In turn, venue and platform automation solutions will become more “algo” like with templated parameters, with the potential for common slippage and performance benchmarks defined and standardised in 2024. Alongside automation, the drive for sophisticated, actionable data will also be at the forefront of innovation, with deeply integrated analytics being crucial to assist with automation decisions and portfolio trading list iterations. It will be fascinating to see the innovation 2024 brings.

Mike Sobel, co-CEO and president, Trumid

US bonds recorded their best month in nearly 40 years in November. With attractive yields and increasing accessibility of the asset class, fixed income is drawing in a more diverse set of market participants. New interest players, such as systematic quants and retail investors, along with more traditional buy- and sell-side institutions are focused on the credit market. 

With alternative participants entering the credit space, technological advances, and the proliferation of market data, the tailwinds for the adoption of more advanced electronic workflows are giving rise to a new era of tech-enabled credit trading. Client interest in intelligence and automation is accelerating as tech-savvy and data rich users seek agile platforms that can rapidly innovate alongside them and provide the aggregated and customised insights that they need.

The credit electronification story is far from over. Greater adoption is creating a network effect – driving liquidity and the velocity of the asset class. Over the next 12 months, we therefore expect technology to play a greater role with intuitive workflows, protocol flexibility, and data-driven decision-making tools adding the greatest value to traders and investors.

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BTON Financial is a cloud-based, AI, and data-driven Software as a Service (SaaS) solution developed to aid buy-side trading desks with reducing costs while still increasing performance.

The firm claims to help buy-side firms execute trading strategies effectively, automating order routing to the most appropriate broker using the most appropriate algorithm.

The SaaS also enables traders to free up time to dedicate to more illiquid and esoteric instruments which require more maintenance and to liaise with their portfolio managers.

The new initiative between BTON Financial and FlexTrade Systems will allow customers to have access to BTON’s recommendation algorithm from within FlexTRADER, leveraging a collective data set utilising artificial intelligence to improve trading decisions.

Traders using the solution through FlexTRADER EMS will also be able to select orders in their blotter and send various parameters including size, instruments, desired algo and timeframe to BTON with a single click – providing feedback on the most favourable broker to achieve best execution.

“We think this is brilliant news for all concerned. It’s now completely seamless to just enable the BTON ‘Trader Co-Pilot’ within FlexTrade and engage best-execution,” Daniel Shepherd, chief executive of BTON Financial, told The TRADE.

“So, by combining BTON’s AI-driven execution capabilities with FlexTrade’s cutting-edge technology we provide a cost-efficient solution for a more sophisticated and accountable approach to order execution through the power of AI.”

This new development builds on existing automation capabilities within FlexTRADER EMS, and FlexAlgoWheel, enabling traders to incorporate BTON’s suggestions within their parameter-driven automation rules to simplify low-touch workflow further.

“We’re delighted to be working with BTON Financial on this new integration to broaden the sources of pre-trade intelligence our clients can access from FlexTRADER EMS,” said Dan Enstedt, vice president at FlexTrade Systems.  

“BTON’s collaborative pre-trade data sets and AI-driven functionality make an exciting proposition for our clients to be able to leverage and, through tight integration, deliver actionable insights directly within their order blotter. Combined with our sophisticated FlexAlgoWheel solution, they can create innovative automation strategies to deliver a competitive edge.”

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The system will replace existing multi-asset processes and will be used to deliver a common set of tools and processes to Amundi’s 60 dealer clients globally for cross asset trading.

“Moving from a single asset-class specific EMS to a centralised, scalable multi-asset solution is a topic dominating our discussions with clients, prospects and consultant firms,” FlexTrade System’s managing director for EMEA, Andy Mahoney, told The TRADE.

“The desire to automate and electronify fixed income trading is certainly a key component of the trend, but also bringing additional asset classes such as derivatives or FX onto the EMS shows that firms are thinking further ahead now to deliver a streamlined and technology-driven agile approach to cross-asset trading.”

Following the integration, Amundi Intermédiation’s dealing teams will gain access to various automation tools to streamline workflows, including FlexAlgowheel across asset classes.

The move will also boost Amundi Intermédiation’s capabilities in fixed income to further its efforts to automate and electronify its bond execution operations. Once integrated, dealing teams will also gain access to FlexTrade’s Fixed Income Smart Order Router (FISOR) to expand automation using consolidated pre-trade data.

The deal follows the expansion of the FlexTRADER EMS by FlexTrade in recent months. In May, FlexTrade Systems confirmed plans to launch artificial intelligence-driven (AI) functionality within its multi-asset solution.

At the time of the announcement, FlexTrade said the new interface layer is designed to revolutionise how trading teams interact with their data and trading technology solutions.

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Is there a growing demand for artificial intelligence-driven functionality from clients?

The interest in AI has exploded in the past few months, crossing over to capture the imagination of both consumer and business markets. However, rather than a growing demand for artificial intelligence-driven functionality per se, I would say it’s part of the ongoing keen interest in any new technology innovation that can alleviate operational friction and improve how our clients interact with their technology. They aren’t necessarily coming to us to say, “we want an AI solution,” but instead, asking us to deliver ways – through the most appropriate technology – to streamline workflow further.

Although AI has progressed dramatically, concrete use cases are still somewhat in their infancy, meaning that while the technology is accessible, applications are still being formulated. As a technology partner, it’s our job to innovate beyond expectation and, essentially, stay abreast of these technological advances and ensure we apply them in the right manner. For example, to streamline a point of friction that a trader might not realise could be optimised or refined previously.

ChatGPT may appear to be a recent development, however as part of our research & development team efforts, we’ve been working with OpenAI Codex API for some time, having signed up for the early beta. It gave us the opportunity to get ahead of the curve when understanding and refining its initial various use cases. The outcome is our recent innovation FlexA.

We’ve been showcasing the solution to clients and prospects during our regular discussions. Presenting real use cases means that clients can immediately see the value of applying the technology, which in turn is now driving the interest and demand – and crucially, they are feeding back ideas and suggestions to take things further, which is what industry innovation and driving change is all about.

How can artificial intelligence revolutionise how trading teams interact with their data and trading technology solutions?

Our initial work with AI has seen us focus on two key areas – reducing the friction between traders and technology and increasing the speed at which traders can work with, and understand, vast volumes of data.

Taking working with technology as a starter, we’ve created a new AI layer using ChatGPT, which sits across FlexTRADER EMS and can simplify the interaction between the trader and their trading technology platform. Doing so enables a trader using the solution to use natural language to control their FlexTRADER user experience via voice or chat box, with AI acting as a translation layer between human and machine.

To provide context, traders can use voice commands to quickly establish a deep situational understanding of the order blotter via filtering, sorting and surfacing the data they need to see at any moment. Simple requests can be made, for example, “how many of my orders have been waiting for more than ten minutes?” or “give me a breakdown of value by portfolio manager”. Taking a step further, orders can be grabbed to prep or allocated internally across the desk. For instance, “assign all energy orders” to a specific trader or “send all orders under 1% ADV to the GS VWAP”.

The second area where we see a substantial uplift is working with vast volumes of trade history and TCA data. Using AI, traders can request ad-hoc reports with specific visualisation formats, including tables and charts, to assist with pre-trade decision-making. It removes the need to formulate complex search queries. Instead, it enables traders to use natural language to rapidly interact, interrogate and understand data in the manner that makes the most sense to them. For example: ” what was the most I’ve paid for Apple in the last year? ” or “show me a chart of brokers in July by value”.

The important point is that using AI doesn’t replace the trader, but augments to speed up and improve productivity. For example, while AI can surface and visualise data – and reduce the number of clicks or customed queries required to get to it, it still needs analysis, understanding and expertise to action it. Further, while it can organise and navigate an order blotter, the trader is still in control via safeguards to send the order.

What other technological advancement are you expecting to see in the EMS space?

While understandably AI and ChatGPT might be dominating the headlines due to its groundbreaking nature, accessibility, and unlimited potential uses, an area we see advancements in – across asset classes – is the drive to use the EMS to tackle an increasingly fragmented liquidity landscape.

To address the dearth of accessible liquidity prevalent across all asset classes, the EMS is becoming a key component to effectively democratise liquidity by directly streaming sources of traditional and non-traditional actionable liquidity into the order blotter.

For example, on the equities side, we see requests for seamless integrations to non-traditional sources of liquidity, such as SI and CRBs, and to have this available alongside more traditional offerings. From a fixed-income perspective, bilateral electronic connections are finally becoming commonplace.

Not only does having both traditional and non-traditional sources of liquidity deliver a holistic view of options available within the market, but it can also mean that automation rules can be applied, further streamlining workflow. As firms increasingly look to stream and democratise liquidity data directly into the blotter, cutting-edge EMS technology is the key to handling the vast volumes of analytics from bilateral connections.

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FlexTrade Systems is set to launch artificial intelligence-driven (AI) functionality within its multi-asset solution FlexTRADER EMS.

FlexTrade stated that the new interface layer is designed to revolutionise how trading teams interact with their data and trading technology solutions.

In recent months, OpenAI driven solutions which apply natural language processing to large language model (LLM) systems, such as ChatGPT, have seen firms seeking ways in which they can be applied in the trading place. FlexTrade claims that its new offering is among the first practical examples of the technology being used directly within an OEMS solution.

The new solution, which FlexTrade refers to as FlexA, is a voice-activated application developed by the firm’s in-house data science team. An AI layer has been applied across FlexTRADER EMS to simplify the interaction between traders and their trading technology platform, while also working with broad information outside traditional 2D grid visualisation and input devices that are currently used.

The new solution will enable traders using FlexTRADER EMS – with FlexA enabled – to apply natural language to interrogate and control the solution through voice commands or a text-based chat interface. This will allow clients to quickly achieve situational awareness of orders within their blotters using a combination of specific criteria or characteristics.

Traders will allows be able to request ad-hoc reports on historical trading with specific visualisation formats, including tables and charts, to aid pre-trade decision-making, as well as the ability to send actions to be automated to help speed up workflow.

“The introduction of OpenAI and ChatGPT is a revolutionary moment in consumer technology, and the speed at which we’ve incorporated it across FlexTRADER EMS is a milestone achievement,” said Vijay Kedia, chief executive of FlexTrade Systems.

“It enables traders to use natural language to rapidly interact, interrogate and understand data in the manner which makes the most sense to them. The outcome is that it erodes the barriers created by traditional input devices such as keyboard and mouse, enabling trading teams to work quickly to understand and optimise their pre-trade decisions, which is paramount in a constantly changing environment.” 

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The integration will allow traders using Spark EMS to access and stream real-time global market data across various outputs including desktop, browser and API.

Using SIX API, combined with FlexTrade’s Spark EMS solution, the new offering will provide an off-the-shelf trading solution that can help reduce time-to-market for new fund launches.

“SIX API has been developed to meet the challenges of an evolving marketplace, with flexible commercial models, and is part of our investment in a strategic technology program,” said Shai Popat, head of product and commercial strategy, financial information at SIX.

“The close partnership we have developed with FlexTrade enables us to meet market demands quickly, ultimately benefiting our mutual clients. We are thrilled to be working with the FlexTrade team.”

Earlier this year, investment management solutions provider SimCorp partnered with FlexTrade Systems to extend its order management system capabilities by incorporating the cross-asset EMS functionality of FlexTrade’s FlexTRADER EMS.

SimCorp’s partnership with FlexTrade Systems aims to meet increasing demand from trading teams for integration and collaborative workflows between their OMS and EMS solutions, alongside helping to optimise trading activities and to meet best execution obligations.

“Delivering choice to our clients and prospects with out-of-the-box integrations to a selection of market-leading propositions, such as SIX, is at the heart of the Spark EMS offering,” said Adi Ornjavorac, general manager, Spark EMS.

“It ensures our clients can reduce time to market when new business requirements arise, delivering a competitive edge. Our new integration with SIX is ready for client deployment, and we look forward to further developing the partnership.”

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Andrew Morgan, president and chief revenue officer, TS Imagine:

Dom Holland, UK head of sales, LedgerEdge: Innovation and efficiency will continue to grow apace, but 2023 will see a move to higher quality information with smart filtering to eliminate “noise”. The decades-long journey from analogue to digital finance has resulted in cash evaporating from our lives – making transactions faster, easier and cheaper. The same process is transforming fixed income. The past 20 years has seen markets embrace electronic dissemination of information. We are past the tipping point of having too much information, and because it is blindly delivered, the quality of it doesn’t have to be high. Initially, it was about quantity to promote dialogue, but now tools exist that allow market participants to better control and target the information they are sending. As more users and markets embrace new capabilities, participants will better filter what they consume and promote to individual users.

The role market makers play will also change, and we will continue to see an evolution in how trading desks operate. The adoption of DLT/AI and other new technologies will accelerate the move to quality from quantity. From a trading perspective, the market has all the protocols that it needs. There will be a move to request for stream (RFS) for the more liquid part of fixed income markets, continuation of RFQ for medium liquidity areas and bilateral negotiation for less liquid; because participants will have high confidence that they are in a true negotiation based on improved pre-trade insight. New technology will continue to stimulate transparency, drive efficiency and create volumes in parts of the market it has opened up.

Andy Mahoney, managing director, EMEA, FlexTrade Systems: Next year will see further strides towards building the next generation of the trader desktop, with the end-goal being to improve, extend, and complement the skillset of the trader. The speed at which technology can be developed and delivered has accelerated, and what would have been considered impossible just a handful of years ago is now commonplace. Innovations such as OpenAI translate natural language into code, which can interact with an API seamlessly, blurring the lines between humans and machines. Combined with FDC3 2.0 intents fuelling the next generation of interoperability and single, seamless workflow-led design between OMS, EMS and interlinked applications, it’s an area we expect to see rapidly develop in 2023, providing the next wave of innovative, trader-centric solutions. 

Mark Govoni, chief executive officer, Liquidnet: Rising operational costs, heightened market volatility and increased regulatory burden has led to a wave of mergers and acquisitions in the asset management industry, prompting buy-side firms to review their trading functions and find a way to do more with less. In this environment, multi-asset trading has been gaining momentum and as such, trading desks are evolving to accommodate this shift. One challenge that remains is the need for cross-asset platforms to be able to excel across all asset classes, with high quality and consistent coverage, which can be difficult as technology, pricing and access to liquidity varies across asset classes. Technology will be key to ensure the shift toward multi-asset trading is seamless across the buy- and sell-side. However, the expert human trader will continue to play an essential role in helping execute complex trades and larger blocks, against a backdrop of increased volatility and a hybrid working model. In these conditions, the buy-side and sell-side will need to collaborate closely together to create a more efficient trading ecosystem, bring innovation to the market and allow multi-asset trading to flourish.

The post The TRADE predictions series 2023: Technology, part one appeared first on The TRADE.

The pair confirmed that FlexTrade Systems’ EMS was the first to integrate the new data offering aimed at streamlining buy-side trader workflows by offering them access to trading venues’ data directly via OpenFin’s operating system to support better liquidity discovery and decision making.

“As a market operator, Turquoise is well positioned to bring the industry together around a common ambition: to collaborate, innovate and to improve efficiencies on

 traders’ desktops,” said Dr Robert Barnes, group head of securities trading and chief executive of Turquoise.

“This will not only support best execution efforts but also improve performance for end investors as it helps us reduce the slippage cost at the point of execution. We are delighted Turquoise and Turquoise Europe are the first trading venues to connect to OpenFin and offer this new functionality to the buy-side.”

FlexTrade Systems confirmed it had become the first execution management system to integrate the feed using OpenFin’s message bus system. Through the integration traders can then use the data to automate processes and take advantage of liquidity opportunities, said OpenFin.

“We are delighted to work with Turquoise and OpenFin to support liquidity discovery and execution opportunities and bring tangible benefits to the buy-side trading desk,” said Andy Mahoney, managing director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) for FlexTrade Systems.

“It helps our clients customise their execution workflows, perform optimally on every trade and achieve best execution without compromise.”

The collaboration with Turquoise follows a partnership with Broadridge by OpenFin in July, where the technology provider deployed OpenFin’s operating systems to offer asset managers more flexible workspaces, configurable layouts and intuitive workflows.

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