This award will recognize the IT solution, systems, innovation or service that exemplifies the best that a provider has to offer for buy-side firms as they strive for operational excellence. The winning offering can be a standalone product or service or part of a suite.
The voters will be rewarding the solution provider that has achieved a level of excellence via innovation for the clearing and settlement of market transactions. In addition to the established providers, the voters will consider those vendors breaking ground for new financial instruments and the latest regulatory changes.
This award celebrates the provider that has streamlined the complexity and improved the process of client reporting. The winner will demonstrate that it has improved the customization, look, and feel, and delivery of reports for many kinds of clients and portfolios. The award also recognizes progress in automating reports, managing source data, monitoring the status of productions, and clarity in performance reporting. Innovative uses of AI technologies will be taken into consideration.
The proper care of client starts with the best on-boarding process, which involves flawless know your customer (KYC) data and support. Ongoing customer care is also essential and customer relationship management (CRM) systems can help firms better serve their clients. This award will focus attention on the provider that advances optimal treatment of market participants.
This award recognizes the provider delivering innovative collateral management capabilities for capital markets firms. Eligible solutions may support margin calculation, collateral optimization, inventory management, dispute resolution, regulatory compliance, counterparty connectivity, and should serve the buy side, sell side, or both. Solutions should also ease interactions between front- and back-office teams. Nominees should demonstrate how their offering addresses the growing complexity of collateral markets, including support for tokenized assets, private credit instruments, and digital collateral models. Submissions should highlight how the solution adapts to new clearing mandates, cross-asset, and cross-border regulatory pressures, and the expanding role of real-time collateral visibility across traditional and digital ecosystems. This category celebrates technology partners helping firms improve efficiency, reduce risk, and meet evolving regulatory requirements.
This honor is for the consultancy that has distinguished itself via achievements such as successful operational IT implementations, accredited and noted research, or consulting services that helped clients advance against competitors.
Corporate actions processing continues to advance and this award spotlights the provider that has incorporated industry standards, advanced automation, data management, ESG data, and emerging technologies. The winner in this category will have helped its clients move closer to automation and streamlined processing.
This award shines the spotlight on the provider that has achieved a new level of modernization via a financial technology solution for middle- and back-office post-trade operations. Eligible areas of consideration include intelligent automation, real-time processing, distributed ledger technology, predictive analytics, and other emerging technologies that push the boundaries of what's possible in securities operations. The winner will demonstrate that its pioneering solution represents a genuine leap forward—eliminating manual processes, driving unprecedented efficiency, or solving problems in entirely new ways.
The infrastructure of cyberspace has become a key operational concern for financial services firms because so much of what they do relies upon it. This award will give the spotlight to a provider that is helping firms fend off cyber threats and hazards, and helping them to fix vulnerabilities that might allow hackers to steal information and money, and/or commit banking and financial fraud.
This award recognizes the provider delivering solutions derivatives operations. Eligible areas include trade capture, confirmation and matching, clearing, settlement, collateral optimization, margin management, or regulatory reporting for listed, over-the-counter (OTC), or non-cleared derivatives. Nominees should demonstrate how their solution improves efficiency, accuracy, or scalability. The winner will show measurable impact in helping firms manage the complexity of derivatives processing.
The judges will reward the provider that has successfully applied effective data management capabilities that ease middle- and back-office operations, including innovations that that facilitate straight through processing (STP).
Investment Book of Record (IBOR) solutions have helped increase operational efficiency across the front, middle and back office. This award recognizes the lead IBOR provider.
The middle office plays an important role in optimizing securities operations across the trading enterprise. The winner in this category will be chosen from the ranks of middle-office operations providers that offer IT resource management services, risk management, risk data analytics, client and security master database support, and services for the coding, configuration, and verification of transactions.
The middle and back-offices are no longer autonomous groups existing independently of each other. They are linked by multiple operations serving multiple assets, which would be hurt by a siloed approach. This award will spotlight the Ops offering that helps firm facilitate more efficient integration between middle- and back-office applications, particularly IT innovations that eliminate manual systems, legacy solutions and pave the way for operational efficiency.
This distinction focuses attention on the buy-side solution launched during the past year that brings innovation to middle- or back-office functions. The systems to be considered should help the buy side meet crucial operational efficiency demands. New offerings for consideration can come from established providers or newcomers to the industry.
Operational risk permeates everything that a financial services firm does, including securities trading and all the steps needed to complete a transaction. This award will reward the provider that has shown the most creativity in mitigating operational risk whether it is related to onboarding and KYC challenges, reputational concerns, margining and collateral management woes, data mismanagement, disaster recovery/business continuity, corporate governance, and other issues that may hamper operations.
Managing data to get the most out of it for securities operations is an ongoing challenge for all financial services firms. Data that is optimized will yield multiple benefits for current efforts and beyond. This honor is for the provider that has demonstrated that it can help firms derive the most value from their clean data, and pave the way for greater advancements to come.
Outsourcing plays a key role for many facets of securities operations. This category honors the provider that offers valuable, reliable, cost-effective and efficient outsourced services to the buy side. The winner in this category will be honored for offering the highest levels of reliability, security and adaptability, and for demonstrating capabilities for rapid implementations and flexible consumer models.
This category spotlights the performance measurement solution provider that offers systems for exemplary calculation of returns for portfolios (benchmarks and composites); calculation of attribution effects for equity and fixed-income portfolios; and calculation of ex-post risk, absolute and relative.
Firms are under pressure to implement a wide range of new regulatory requirements. Suppliers need to provide more support for transparency, optimal valuation controls, enhanced risk and better infrastructure options. This award will recognize the service supplier that offers: the broadest product coverage; partners that contribute pricing; excellent methodology; and specific features for the buy side.
This award recognizes the provider delivering innovative reconciliation capabilities for securities operations. Eligible solutions may address cash, position, transaction, or inter-system reconciliation across traditional and digital assets. Solutions leveraging AI, machine learning, or automation to accelerate exception management and reduce manual effort are encouraged to apply. The winner will demonstrate how its solution helps firms achieve accuracy, efficiency, and scalability in their reconciliation processes.
This award is for the supplier that delivers distinguished offerings to help clients meet their regulatory responsibilities for equities, fixed income, derivative instruments and more. The award targets the offering that does the best job of meeting the demands of regulators, anti-money laundering laws, and the latest domestic and international economic sanctions of governmental authorities.
This award will recognize a behind-the-scenes individual who has been highly effective in advancing a major financial technology issue impacting the industry. The person to be honored has devoted much time and effort toward proliferating a new standard, a key technology initiative, a regulatory-related project or a technology breakthrough that benefits the industry. The winner in this category must show that he or she can work across the aisle with business executives and staff.
This award honors an executive-level individual who has advanced the cause of financial technology innovation from the business side of the aisle. The winner of this award can be from a solutions provider, an end-user firm, or related consultancy committed to improving securities operations for financial services firms. The winner must demonstrate that he or she has effectively worked with IT managers and operations staff.
This is one of the most prestigious honors in the FTF Awards program, recognizing a provider that has demonstrated overall excellence across the board. The winner will have distinguished itself through exceptional client service, industry leadership, innovation, and measurable impact on clients' success. This award goes beyond excellence in a single category — it celebrates a provider that has elevated the standard for what it means to serve capital markets firms.
The purpose of these awards is to celebrate and recognize the professionals, financial technology vendors, service providers, industry bodies and regulators that have made significant strides and noteworthy achievements in operational excellence during 2014.
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