Acuiti today publishes State of the Market: FCMs’ Front-Office: Investing to increase efficiency and operational resilience, in association with Broadridge.
This report explores the challenges of building and maintaining competitive front-office offerings in the current climate. In the first part of the report, we take a look at the competitive landscape and ask where firms are facing challenges in growing their front-office execution business.Secondly, we analyse the current state of play in terms of how FCMs approach technology sourcing and investment. Finally, we look at how FCMs are meeting these challenges with investment and where firms are looking to build to service the market of tomorrow.
The key findings of the report included:
- FCMs are increasing front-office investment to meet the demands of competition and increase operational resilience
- OMS consolidation across asset classes is being targeted by almost half of firms to improve operational efficiency
- Data integration across the front-to-back trade workflow remains a key challenge for firms
- Fees are becoming less of a competitive edge as FCMs leverage customer service, algorithms and technology to compete