The first wave of gen-AI use cases across capital markets technology has sparked widespread energy and excitement about its future potential. At the same time, it has triggered a sense of urgency across infrastructure providers globally that they must act now to avoid being left behind.

Market operators face two critical questions today. Firstly, what is the right operating model and the critical capabilities they want to develop and maintain in-house or source from external providers? And secondly, how do they ensure that they will have access to these advanced capabilities, given the extraordinary level of energy and compute capacity that will be required to power their markets in the future?

If we look ahead to capital markets over the next two decades, the future of trading infrastructure will be built on a fabric of interconnected markets with a common data architecture, seamless connectivity throughout the ecosystem of exchanges and participants, minimal latency, and advanced AI-powered tooling.

Operators don’t have long to embark on their data and tech modernisation journey to get there, and we’re proud to be supporting so many of our infrastructure clients on this path. 

Gideon Mann, global head of AI technology, Millennium 

What was cutting-edge generative AI (GenAI) in early 2024 will look outdated over the next twelve months. Successful organisations will adopt a long-term GenAI strategy, balancing immediate applications with the flexibility to adapt to future innovations in this space.  

In the investment management sector, the diversity of challenges allows us to identify some of the most promising applications of GenAI. These are likely to result from a collaborative approach between technologists and their end users including investment professionals, legal, compliance and finance teams, among others. We have seen early applications of GenAI in the areas of market observability, risk assessment and operational efficiency. In 2025, organisations will be looking to scale the use cases that have shown the greatest potential. 

Jamil Jiva, global head of asset management, Linedata 

As we leave 2024 behind, artificial intelligence is set to transform industry practices. From risk management and regulatory compliance to predictive analytics and cybersecurity, AI promises to bring a new era of transparency, efficiency and innovation to the finance ecosystem. 

The widespread adoption of Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) in risk assessment and management systems marks a decisive turning point. This technology is finally lifting the veil on the ‘black box’ of algorithms behind AI inference systems, offering a clear understanding of AI decision-making processes. This creates an opportunity for financial institutions to renew and reinforce the confidence of customers and regulators while improving the accuracy of their risk models. 

Nick Wood, AI product manager, FINBOURNE  

While AI clearly has the potential to enhance operating margins and reshape the asset management industry, serious adoption remains slow. This hold up is largely due to a lack of confidence in the incumbent data management processes, which need to be designed to support AI technologies.

While AI can certainly act as a feature and capability in an overall workflow, firms must be able to explain the models and trust the quality of the underlying data to get there. With AI showing so much promise, prioritising modern data infrastructures to address data quality concerns will be a priority for many asset managers next year. 

Jim Kwiatkowski, chief executive, LTX (a Broadridge company) 

This year, the fixed-income market experienced notable advancements, with credit market volumes reaching an average daily volume of $49.8 billion, reflecting a 23% year-over-year increase. This growth is projected to continue into 2025, fuelled by a steady increase of credit e-trading. 

Looking ahead, AI is poised to play a pivotal role in bond trading, transforming how fixed-income traders, analysts and portfolio managers process and leverage the growing volume of data from electronic trading. By enabling streamlined access to vast, disparate datasets, AI enhances decision-making in areas like bond selection, trade list construction and protocol optimisation. As AI adoption scales, the market can expect a more vibrant secondary trading environment characterised by improved pricing, enhanced liquidity, and stronger overall performance. 

The post The TRADE predictions series 2025: Artificial intelligence appeared first on The TRADE.

Fintech firm FINBOURNE Technology has won the recent tender process to become the technology infrastructure provider for the joint consolidated tape (CT) project for fixed income in Europe,

Read more – Bloomberg, MarketAxess and Tradeweb take the wheel in European fixed income tape plans 

“We believe a CT would play a key role in achieving this and it is why we’ve spent significant time collaborating with capital markets firms, regulators and industry bodies, to collectively understand the data, its quality and how to deliver a resilient and practical CT to the market,” said FINBOURNE, commenting on its selection. 

“Facilitating change is integral to our mission and in everything we do. It is the driving force behind the achievements, ambition and value creation our employees deliver. Our selection further validates our modern, cloud-based, API-first technology and our ability to deliver critical data access and transparency.” 

No further information is currently available, although Tradeweb told The TRADE that: “Together with Bloomberg and MarketAxess, we will be sharing more information on the progress of our EU bond CTP initiative in due course.” 

The tape has been the subject of longstanding and widespread controversy, but achieved a renewed focus in December 2022 when the Czech presidency of the Council of the European Union in its last days in office finally agreed on a compromise that would push the controversial Mifid II review through to the next stages of discussion. The agreement included plans for a close-to-real-time consolidated tape which includes post-trade data together with best bids and offers available at the time of the particular trade. 

Read More – Czech Presidency achieves Mifid milestone as compromise is approved 

Founded in 2016, FINBOURNE has made substantial growth strides over the past year – in 2022 it increased headcount by nearly 50%, and recently launched operations in North America and Asia Pacific with new offices in New York and Singapore. Last month the firm also secured a £30 million debt facility from Kreos Capital, which will enable it to further expand its international footprint.  

However, FINBOURNE is not the only player in the market, and other competitors are also looking to develop a CT – including capital markets tech firm Etrading Software, which in December 2022 received a significant investment from the private equity division of Lloyds Banking Group, LDC, to help develop its plans.  

Read More – Consolidated tape proposal receives significant boost from private equity investment 

The post FINBOURNE wins tender for joint consolidated tape project appeared first on The TRADE.

Byrne’s appointment comes as part of FINBOURNE’s ongoing expansion into North America and Asia-Pacific, as well as the firm’s continuous hiring drive to build its core team.

He brings over 20 years’ experience in financial services to FINBOURNE, having previously served at Barclays Capital, RBS and UBS Delta.

Byrne also brings experience relating to the evolution of market, trade data transparency and eliminating operational inefficiencies, which aligns with FINBOURNE’s goals to lower investment costs and to increase transparency in the industry.

As part of his new role, Byrne will manage a team of developers, helping them identify feasible market opportunities and build necessary functionality using SaaS technology and API-led data tools.

He will work alongside new domain experts across the UK, North America and Asia-Pacific, including Martin Shaw, who recently joined the firm’s engagement team, bringing product management and sales experience from SimCorp and Charles River Development.

“Having worked with some of the founding members in the past, and with a shared philosophy on the capabilities that a strong data management foundation can deliver, I am genuinely looking forward to contributing to FINBOURNE’s mission, and to evolving its interoperable data stack, to fix inherent data struggles and provide a future-proof solution,” said Byrne.

FINBOURNE’s portfolio management system, LUSID, has supported various financial institutions including Refinitiv, LSEG and Fidelity International. In November last year, Baillie Gifford joined the list of institutions using the platform to help improve its investment data management.

Moving forward, the firm is looking to enter the private markets space, it revealed.

The post FINBOURNE Technology appoints new CTO as part of North American and APAC expansion appeared first on The TRADE.

LUSID will act as another arm of the Group’s digital and cloud platform, providing a scalable and virtual real-time data repository that will consolidate multi-asset class data across the businesses.

As part of the partnership, LSEG will also invest in FINBOURNE, which will involve both firms working to innovate and develop new capabilities that will be beneficial to the institution’s global clients.

LSEG’s data and analytics division will work alongside FINBOURNE to innovate and evolve data services solutions across its wealth and investment solutions business areas.

LUSID’s cloud-first nature will form part of the transformation of LSEG’s wealth solutions as it looks to meet growing digital adoption among wealth advisers.

 Secondly, with respect to the area of investment solutions, LUSID’s bitemporal Investment Book of Record will support LSEG in allowing a data view across timelines, and with complete lineage.

“The partnership with FINBOURNE supports LSEG’s open access environment for its clients to leverage the breadth of data, analytics and integrated workflow solutions,” said Emily Prince, group director of fixed income analytics, LSEG.

“We look forward to working with FINBOURNE, drawing on our joint financial market expertise, to create new services and flexible solutions to better serve our clients.”

Last month, another partnership with LSEG, Turquoise Plato, achieved a milestone soon after celebrating its five-year anniversary. Robert Barnes, CEO of LSEG’s Turquoise, told The TRADE that since partnering with Plato five years ago, clients have traded more than €1.1 trillion in equities.

“The partnership and investment from LSEG, is a key milestone for FINBOURNE, as we get closer to realising our vision; powering the investment data processes that sit at the heart of the industry,” said Tom McHugh, CEO and co-founder of FINBOURNE Technology.

“We’ve taken years of financial industry best practice, combined with advanced cloud-first technology, to create a data platform that empowers our clients to deliver better investment decisions. We look forward to continuing this innovation, as we support the transformation of such an esteemed global institution.”

The post LSEG partners with FINBOURNE to enhance digital data program across its business appeared first on The TRADE.

FlexTrade has integrated its execution management system (EMS) with the investment data processing platform from FINBOURNE to broaden execution strategies available to buy-side clients.

Under the partnership, users of the FlexNOW EMS and FINBOURNE’S LUSID platform will gain front-to-back abilities to trade and manage multi-asset strategies globally. 

FINBOURNE and FlexTrade said the integration will help mutual buy-side clients achieve best execution in challenging markets alongside real-time risk and position management.

FINBOURNE’S LUSID tool is a cloud native and API driven portfolio management system and investment data management system, while FlexNOW combines cloud, desktop, mobile, and API technology to streamline operations for users.

“Our new partnership with FINBOURNE will give our FlexNOW-FINBOURNE future clients access to powerful PMS and EMS capabilities,” said Adi Prnjavorac, general manager for FlexNOW at FlexTrade Systems. “The combination of the two products is uniquely positioned to address complex and time-consuming workflows.” 

FlexTrade’s cloud-based EMS is used by some of the largest participants and has attracted several pieces of new business from buy-side firms in the last year. Most recent was Lyxor Asset Management which integrated the FlexNOW EMS by FlexTrade in February earlier this year. 

Earlier this month, Fidelity International invested in FINBOURNE via its venture capital business after helping the vendor develop its LUSID platform as part of a long-standing partnership between the two firms.

“A combination of client demand and complimentary functionality makes the connectivity with FlexNOW compelling – clients can now benefit from best of breed solutions across the trade lifecycle,” added Thomas Mchugh, co-founder and chief executive officer of FINBOURNE. 

The post FlexTrade integrates EMS with FINBOURNE data platform appeared first on The TRADE.

FINBOURNE received a strategic investment from the venture capital business at Fidelity, known as Fidelity International Strategic Ventures, in a recent funding round with other undisclosed investors.

Fidelity will now adopt FINBOURNE’s LUSID platform, which the asset manager developed in partnership with the platform provider, HSBC Securities Services and hedge fund Atlana Wealth in 2018, to replace legacy in-house software and hardware data systems.

LUSID went live in 2019 with its cloud-based and API architecture to consolidate and simplify complex data controls and performance, allowing buy-side firms to pull their data from portfolios, custodians, fund administrators and prime brokers into a single platform.

“FINBOURNE’s unique platform offers the most complete integrated data solution in the market, while remaining fully open architecture,” said Alokik Advani, managing partner at Fidelity International Strategic Ventures. “We recognise the important role FINBOURNE will play in streamlining Fidelity’s own legacy data architecture today, as well as the growing opportunity it will provide for broader market participants right across the investment community.”

The investment and partnership with FINBOURNE follows recent news that Fidelity became the first asset manager to sign a FinTech pledge in the UK aimed at accelerating growth of the FinTech sector with standards for onboarding and partnerships.

As part of the pledge, Fidelity has committed to five principles including guidance for FinTech firms on the onboarding process, clarity on progress throughout onboarding, a named contact, good practice and improvement, and bi-annual feedback.

“We see FINBOURNE’s platform as complementary to our digital and cloud strategy at Fidelity as we focus on our core areas of un-bundling through the use of APIs and becoming a more data-driven organisation,” added Stuart Warner, head of technology at Fidelity International.

“In time, the platform will act as a central hub to design and create new capabilities that will seamlessly connect with FinTech’s and other service providers, which will enable us to service our clients in a completely new and innovative way.”   

The post Fidelity deploys and invests in cloud-based data platform to streamline legacy data appeared first on The TRADE.

Finbourne, the FinTech firm that has collaborated with the likes of Fidelity, Altana and HSBC Securities Services, has released an early access programme for its flagship cloud-based investment data management platform, LUSID.

The platform allows asset managers to pull their own data from multiple portfolios, custodians, fund administrators and prime brokers, into a single view of their positions and perform daily reconciliations.

Thomas McHugh, co-founder and co-CEO of Finbourne, explained to Global Custodian the firm is aiming to create an open environment for asset managers to open an account and take in their own data across all of their trade data.

“The platform holds all of that data – from trade data, reference data, market data, risk, portfolio and performance data – and translates it, be it from a custodian, a trading platform or middle-office provider,” said McHugh.

“It also allows the custodian or the fund administrator to look at the portfolio in a different lens, giving you a system that can help everyone on the demand curve.”

One area Finbourne has identified a unique use case of its platform is in the reconciliation space and improve the oversight of outsourced investment functions. Asset managers that have outsourced their fund accounting can often find significant discrepancies between their records and those of the fund administrator.

LUSID would be able to automate the reconciliation process between the asset manager and the fund accountant’s record, and provide corrections when there are breaks in the data.

Finbourne is allowing potential clients to sign up for a 90-day evaluation account for them to assess the features of the platform, including gaining access to market data.

“What we would like to see happen is the democratisation of data. There is no reason why each individual client of an asset servicer could manager their own data,” added McHugh.

The post Ambitious start-up looking to take on legacy data platforms launches appeared first on The TRADE.

FINBOURNE’s LUSID platform is an event-based ledger that allows in-house and third party services to interface with portfolios, holdings and transactions. The deal with Thomson Reuters aims to provide its clients with improved cost efficiency and better management of data used for regulatory compliance.

Thomson Reuters’ clients will be able to use the LUSID platform to manage portfolios and transactions data, alongside the firm’s portfolio construction, trade execution and risk management services. 

“Our customers depend on us to provide the insights, data, and advanced technological solutions needed to gain a competitive advantage,” said Pradeep Menon, global head of investing and advisory at Thomson Reuters. 

“Our partnership with FINBOURNE will enable our customers to manage currently disparate capabilities giving them a cloud-based ‘single source of truth’ for all portfolio and transaction data so that any change or update that occurs will be reflected in all products or applications in real-time.”

Dermot Shortt, co-founder of FINBOURNE, added that the partnership with Thomson Reuters heralds a new era for the FinTech company’s clients.

“Thomson Reuters is a superb partner for FINBOURNE. We share a common vision for the future state of investment management infrastructure, based on interoperability and open platforms,” he said. 

The post Thomson Reuters links up to London FinTech’s buy-side platform appeared first on The TRADE.