CME Ventures, CTC Venture Capital, SC Ventures and Tribeca Early Stage Partners were additional investors in the funding round. Other major investors include Bain Capital Ventures, Barclays, DRW Venture Capital, HSBC, JP Morgan, NYCA Partners and Wells Fargo Strategic Capital.

The investment will be used to help accelerate the adoption of OpenFin OS across the financial industry. The software is currently used at more than 3,800 banks, wealth and asset management firms in over 60 countries.

Launched in 2021, OpenFin WorkSpace includes an app launcher, notification centre, universal search, an enterprise browser with default interoperability and app store capabilities – which help unify the end user experience across both internal and third-party apps, which the firm claims enhances productivity and reduces operational risk.

“OpenFin Workspace is empowering financial institutions to transform experience for their employees and their customers, replacing traditional browsers with an enterprise browser designed for work,” said Mazy Dar, chief executive of OpenFin. 

“We’re delighted to welcome Bank of America as our newest strategic investor and we’re grateful for the continued support from Pivot Investment Partners and so many other existing investors.”

This latest funding round follows a $10 million investment from ING Ventures, the venture capital arm of ING, in July last year.

“OpenFin provides the financial industry with a truly open workspace platform that is unrivalled when it comes to app distribution, security, interoperability, scale and governance,” said Dinkar Jetley, co-founder and managing partner at Pivot Investment Partners.

“We have backed OpenFin’s vision since 2015 and are delighted to support the company as they expand across the financial sector and beyond.”

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The partnership will see LSEG leverage OpenFin’s zero-install delivery model and container technology to improve and simplify the distribution of LSEG’s data and analytics to clients.

The LSEG Workspace platform offers traders, wealth advisors, research analysts, portfolio managers and investment bankers with access to financial data, news, analytics and productivity tools in what the firm describes as an intuitive end-user experience.

“LSEG’s Workspace product built and deployed on OpenFin’s OS will create a more unified, UX focused solution that delivers on LSEG’s digital transformation strategy to rationalise their application space, deliver the best technology to end users and drive better engagement with end clients through interoperability,” Adam Toms, chief executive of OpenFin, told The TRADE.

“This flagship partnership is part of our continued investment in providing the largest and most diverse Capital Markets ecosystem in Finance.”

OpenFin provides Chromium container and workspace technology to the financial industry and has deployed to over 3,800 banks and buy-side firms.

As part of the partnership, LSEG will migrate LSEG Workspace to leverage OpenFin’s technology, with the aim to make its platform more easily deployable and interoperable with internal apps developed by banks and buy-side customers.

“As technologists we greatly appreciate OpenFin’s commitment to open web standards and their rigorous process for keeping up with Google Chromium,” said Borre Wessel, head of desktop platform technology at LSEG.

“We will leverage their technology to deliver LSEG Workspace cross-platform to both Windows and Mac devices.”

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OpenFin strengthened its executive leadership team with the appointment of Vicky Sanders as chief digital officer. As part of the role, Sanders will drive digital transformation across OpenFin’s ecosystem of buy- and sell-side institutions as well as the global vendor community. She joins from TP ICAP Group’s agency execution division where she served as chief commercial officer, responsible for the commercial strategy of Liquidnet and Coex Partners businesses. Before that, she co-founded fintech RSRCHXchange, leading the business through its 2019 acquisition by Liquidnet. During her tenure at Liquidnet, Sanders operated as head of investment analytics before Liquidnet’s acquisition by TP ICAP. Earlier in her career, she served as an executive director at Goldman Sachs and as an associate at Merrill Lynch.

RBC Capital Markets appointed Simon Johnson as its new managing director, head of credit sales EMEA. As part of the role, Johnson will oversee sales across RBC’s investment grade and high yield credit client base in Europe. He joins RBC from Credit Suisse, where he held senior roles in the European credit sales team over the last 21 years. Most recently, Johnson served as managing director, head of UK, hedge fund and Nordic credit sales. Before joining Credit Suisse, he served as a repo trading assistant at Goldman Sachs. Based in London, Johnson will report directly to Janet Wilkinson, co-head, FICC sales at RBC Capital Markets.

Proprietary trading firm DRW appointed Bill Wiley as chief operating officer, equities. Wiley joins DRW from Instinet Incorporated, where he spent the last four years, most recently serving as global head of strategy. Prior to that, he spent seven years at KCG Holdings, serving as chief operating officer across client execution services and customer market making. In addition, Wiley previously operated in a business restructuring role at BDO Consulting.

David Perkins, who served as TP ICAP’s global head of post-trade solutions for its post-trade, data and analytics division, Parameta Solutions, has left the firm for pastures new. Perkins leaves after 15 years with TP ICAP, serving in his most recent role for a year and a half. Before operating as Parameta’s global head of post-trade, Perkins spent four years as global head of electronic markets for the interdealer broker, and nine years as global head of electronic broking for Tullett Prebon prior to its merger with ICAP in 2016. Previously in his career he also spent four years as head of eBusiness for EMEA at ABN AMRO, two years as head of sales at equity trading firm Van der Moolen, and held various previous roles at Goldman Sachs, Martin International Securities and ICAP. Perkins’ next position has not yet been disclosed.

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As part of the role, Sanders will drive digital transformation across OpenFin’s ecosystem of buy- and sell-side institutions as well as the global vendor community.

Sanders joins from TP ICAP Group’s agency execution division where she served as chief commercial officer, responsible for the commercial strategy of Liquidnet and Coex Partners businesses.

Before that, she co-founded fintech RSRCHXchange, leading the business through its 2019 acquisition by Liquidnet.

“Vicky will work closely with financial institutions to improve employee empowerment, productivity, and interconnected experiences.”

During her tenure at Liquidnet, Sanders operated as head of investment analytics, where she developed a new division and product which provided insights to buy-side traders and portfolio managers, before Liquidnet’s acquisition by TP ICAP.

Earlier in her career, Sanders served as an executive director at Goldman Sachs and as an associate at Merrill Lynch.

“With a track record of solving complex workflow challenges, OpenFin’s ecosystem has grown to include 23 of the 25 global banks, leading asset managers and large and innovative software vendors,” said Sanders.

“I’m excited to join at a time of strong momentum and look forward to working with such a talented team to unlock the power of OpenFin’s network while shaping digital transformation across the industry and beyond.”

Sanders’ appointment follows a $10 million investment won by OpenFin from ING Ventures last month, which will be used to accelerate the expansion of OpenFin OS throughout the financial industry.

ING Ventures joined Bain Capital Ventures, CME Ventures, HSBC, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, among others, which have all shown support for OpenFin’s enterprise operating system.  

“Vicky will work closely with financial institutions to improve employee empowerment, productivity, and interconnected experiences,” said Adam Toms, chief operating officer at OpenFin.

“This is more important than ever as organisations need to ensure that their teams work smarter, faster, and collaborate more effectively.”

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Adam Toms, European CEO, OpenFin

OpenFin, an operating system for enterprise productivity across the financial system, has won a new strategic investment from ING Ventures, the venture capital arm of ING. The TRADE has learned that the investment amount is around $10 million.  

“Having yet another big, strategic investor like ING on board really drives home that what we are building – with and for the world’s largest banks – are necessary tools for today’s trader desktops,” said Adam Toms, European CEO of OpenFin, speaking to The TRADE.  

The announcement follows a period of accelerated growth since last year’s launch of OpenFin Workspace, a new visual interface of OpenFin OS which includes components for complex windowing, advanced search, actionable notifications and application discovery. Built on Google’s Chromium engine, OpenFin OS simplifies app distribution, unifies the digital workspace and enables improved communication and workflow between apps. 

“With the launch of Workspace last year, we enable users across banks and asset managers to consolidate and automate their workflows across desktops and applications, work smarter, faster, more collaboratively and effectively than ever before. And we do this at scale. With ING in particular, we are supporting its digital transformation strategies across the bank,” said Toms.  

OpenFin software is currently used at over 2,400 banks and asset managers across over 60 countries. The latest round of capital will be used to accelerate expansion of OpenFin OS to “every user within financial services”, according to the firm, whose software is already being used by 23 of top 25 global banks.  

ING first adopted OpenFin’s technology in 2021 to accelerate its desktop transformation strategy. “Being relevant, easy, personal and instant remains a priority for ING and our partnership with OpenFin further evidences our commitment in accelerating a superior customer and employee experience through digital,” Frederic Hofmann, co-head of ING Ventures, told The TRADE.  

The bank becomes the seventh major financial institution to invest in the operating system.  

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FX tech provider Edgewater Markets has completed its migration to OpenFin, an operating system for enterprise productivity, distributing its full suite of products to clients globally.

First launched back in the third quarter of 2021, Edgewater Markets on OpenFin has since been deployed into production accessible from its data centres in New York, London, Tokyo and Singapore. 

The migration to OpenFin was driven by customer demand based on browser workflow limitations. By using OpenFin, Edgewater Markets now believes it can deliver a more flexible UX that offers users, such as Tier 1 and 2 banks, emerging market and regional banks, macro funds, high frequency funds, pension funds, and corporates, the ability to better customise their workspace.  

Edgewater Markets on OpenFin has full product parity with the existing browser version, in addition to added benefits delivered by OpenFin such as window management for efficient workflows and desktop real estate management, as well as enterprise grade security, zero install, memory retention and native desktop capabilities. 

The move marks a growing desire from FX traders to streamline their tech processes, calling for easier navigation, better visualisation, real-time notifications and a simpler desktop experience.  

“Our clients needed more robust windowing performance from our platform. Since partnering with OpenFin, users have been very happy with the enhanced user experience due to window management capabilities and have seen an upgrade in performance of data delivery as a result,” said Brian Andreyko, chief product officer at Edgewater Markets.  

“Our development team was able to deliver the solution within four weeks utilizing the OpenFin framework, and we were off and running.” 
 

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However, it is important that increased investment in technology is coupled with a strategy for accessing the best talent. Companies need to hire people with a deep domain knowledge of industry processes, and a solid understanding of how next-gen technologies work. Yet these types of people are going to become even harder to find next year as the competitive race for talent continues. As a result, we expect to see more custodians turning to third-party FinTech providers to access their pools of skilled, experienced personnel as much as they are for the technology itself. 

– Samir Pandiri, president of Broadridge International

We will see an acceleration of desktop consolidation across asset classes, to achieve more efficiencies and oversight. This has become a much more urgent need with the potential long term continuation of remote working. Users will also demand greater access to liquidity and execution quality, aggregated liquidity and enhanced pre- and post trade analytics. Cloud migration will be a major focus for scalability and ease of deployment purposes. The pandemic has taught the industry the importance of being able to work remotely with the right systems. As managers chase alpha, more firms will look to create quantitative trading strategies thereby increasing the need for APIs.

These will need to be smarter than prior and will need to be able to manage complex algos, pairs and gamma trading strategies. There will be a big shift in the way institutions will see crypto in 2022. The asset class will start to form part of traditional asset managers mandates and allocations to crypto assets within their funds will increase. This could potentially create operation headaches that their systems will need to overcome. Electronification of fixed income markets will continue throughout 2022 with more accurate price discovery tools and a wider range of liquidity providers distributing axes and inventory in multiple formats. Outsourcing of trading and other services will accelerate as we move to a new workplace paradigm. Recruitment challenges under the pandemic will increase the need for outsourced trading services, as will the longer-term need for remote working.

– Chris Jenkins, managing director at TORA 

 As the events of the past 18 months have shown, the need for enterprises to have flexible technologies able to handle changes in working environments has accelerated. Employees the world over found themselves displaced from their physical office spaces and thrust into a completely digital workplace, making the shortcomings and damaging repercussions of traditional operating systems and legacy technologies acutely apparent.

What’s more, employee satisfaction today is very much anchored in being provided with the right apps and technology tools within daily workflows. In 2022 expect to see a “new normal” evolve – which will see a move away from cluttered desktops, disjointed communication and disordered workflows across enterprises. Instead, the focus will be on having access to a set of tools designed to empower productivity and deliver exceptional employee experiences. Business leaders recognise that the future of work is changing. We are excited to be part of defining the path, accelerating employees towards a hyper-personalised experience.

– Adam Toms, European CEO, OpenFin

Next year will see attitudes toward front-office innovation change as it becomes increasingly clear that technology is not a cost centre but a revenue generator. Firms need to take control of their technology to differentiate and compete in the long-term. This shift in approach will drive two key themes.

The first is the increased focus on technological intensity, where institutions reduce their reliance on vendors to build their own technology to enable them to differentiate and compete. This changing approach to trading technology will drive institutions to move away from ‘off-the-peg’ technology, which is no longer enough to differentiate as they transition to taking front-office innovation into their own hands.

The second is the front office’s shift to the cloud. While the back and middle-office’s migration to the cloud is well established, the front-office has been slower to make the leap. Attitudes are changing however, and businesses are realising that the cloud is secure, powerful and gives firms easy access to rich data and analytics. We can expect to see front office infrastructure increasingly moving to the cloud, as it becomes the centre of a new financial ecosystem that will become increasingly integral to institutions’ operations.

– Matt Barrett, CEO of Adaptive Financial Consulting

Over the past couple of years, initiatives such as FDC3 have made great strides to solve the challenges associated with delivering actionable intelligence and workflow focus to the desktops of trading teams. These open standards reduce the friction of data movement and application interoperability to increase speed, quality and efficiency of trading-decision making.

With proven solutions to plumb data increasingly commonplace, the next 12 months will inevitably see software vendor focus free up from solving aggregation and connectivity issues to delivering value-adding innovation. Consequently, previously tied up resources will be allocated to developing and providing cutting-edge new technology that dramatically pushes workflows forward. In 2022, those who move ahead of the pack and differentiate will be the firms working closely with clients to understand their current needs and future requirements. As a result, they will optimise their thinking and technology around the user and experience rather than grappling with customising legacy workflows. Augmenting traders with automation and alerting, driven by actionable intelligence, represents the next generation of front-office technology.

 – Andy Mahoney, managing director, FlexTrade EMEA

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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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Asset managers using the new digital workspace solution and next generation portfolio and order management system will gain componentised apps with configurable layouts and intuitive workflows.

Traders and portfolio managers will be able to manage desktop real estate more efficiently and productivity will be increased by reducing the effort and time navigating across multiple windows and screens, according to Broadridge.

OpenFin’s operating system aims to establish universal connectivity and standards across the financial industry’s desktop applications. It solves operational issues associated with inter-system connectivity, where end-users at banks and hedge funds deploy a combination of in-house and vendor applications.

“In this ever-evolving digital environment, clients are increasingly looking for flexibility and the ability to adapt their workspaces to meet their unique needs. OpenFin’s leading system, combined with our open architecture, will eliminate user friction and is another example of how we are setting the industry standard for flexible and adaptable next-gen investment operations,” added Eric Bernstein, president of Broadridge Asset Management.

The partnership with OpenFin follows Broadridge’s recent launch of a new blockchain-based platform which utilises smart contracts and distributed ledger technology, a move that could potentially transform the repo market. The platform enables firms to agree, execute and settle repo transactions on a decentralised platform.

“Providing an adaptable interface customisable to user preferences will help Broadridge’s clients boost productivity and simplify the investment management process,” said Mazy Dar, CEO of OpenFin.

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Adam Toms, CEO, OpenFin Europe

Annabel Smith: How does it feel to win the LiTDX FinTech of the Year 2020 award?

Adam Toms: We at OpenFin feel honoured to have won the FinTech of the Year 2020 award. OpenFin is the operating system (OS) of finance, an open and collaborative platform for the industry to be more successful. We are building for the industry and that has always been our goal. To be recognised in an industry vote is fantastic.

AS: What role has FinTech played during 2020 and the pandemic?

AT: FinTech has played a significant role in providing solutions across the industry. There are endless stories of FinTechs who saw demand for their products grow aggressively and subsequently experienced rapid growth during 2020. Most market participants already had an agenda of change in place, including tech modernisation and digital transformation programmes, but these were accelerated over the course of 2020.

AS: What has been the biggest challenge faced by traders during 2020?

AT: In the early months of the pandemic the greatest issue was the set up and coordination of workforces as they transitioned to a home environment from an office one. With this, however, we’ve lost important conversations had in the office and passive listening that goes on in a working environment. That passive listening is an important learning tool which is used to build a picture of what is going on around you. I like to think all of our team members are continuously learning and I think they learn a lot from passive listening. With people hopefully returning to the office in the next few months I think this will be an important element to get back.

AS: What has OpenFin done in 2020 to meet the challenges posed by the pandemic?

AT: OpenFin powers applications and user experiences on the financial desktop. One of the things our product has done is help users manage their workspace much more effectively and manage the changing attitude to screen real estate in 2020. A lot of traders went from working from six screens in the office to working from two at home and so our ability to save and restore different work spaces for users, allowing them to maximise their screen real estate space and to configure different workflows on their desktop, was critically important. This was very powerful in a ‘work from home’ setting.

We launched our notification centre aimed at financial institutions including banks, buy-side brokers, and financial services vendors, which was designed in collaboration with our clients. We believe notifications are essential to communicating, alerting people to data insights and helping people make faster decisions. There was a strong and rapid uptake of that solution during the pandemic.

AS: What role will FinTech play in the market’s evolution in 2021?

AT: I think the current situation is a new normal, and with that we will have to think more deeply about the future of work and the need to be able to work from anywhere. Different companies will make different calls on the level of flexibility they offer their employees, but we certainly believe there will be a strong movement where people will be looking at their future work agendas and thinking about how they want to evolve based on the learnings of the last 12 months – there are many solutions available to assist with this.

Now that workforces have been largely distributed there will need to be a greater emphasis on collaboration tools such as OpenFin to unify experiences across teams that are no longer sat together in the same office.

AS: What have you learned from 2020 that you will take into 2021?

AT: I think the ability to adapt and be resilient at a company and team level is really important, as a smaller high growth company we are lucky to be very nimble. Throughout 2020 important topics such as mental health and well-being were more heavily discussed. These have always been important topics, but I think organisations will now place a higher level of priority on them going forward.

For us, being really mindful about each individual’s personal situation and associated working environment, wherever that may be, is something that we will continue to pay close attention to.

AS: Have you ever seen conditions like the ones seen during 2020 before?

AT: It has certainly been unique. I have seen some extraordinary events in the marketplace including the dot com bubble and the significant bankruptcy at Lehman Brothers in 2008. These sudden, significant tail risk events have a high degree of similarities with stresses and challenges for the markets during the pandemic.

2020 presented a number of challenges for the markets and companies alike, I think we are all looking forward to a return to some form of normality, but we will carry the unique experiences from 2020 with us for some time to come.

All digital content from Leaders in Trading: The Digital Experience (LiTDX) is available to view on-demand now. 

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