Cost efficiencies combined with the push for straight through processing (STP) are driving securities-trading firms to improve the middle and back offices, says Tom Jordan, president and CEO of Wall Street trading technology consultancy Jordan & Jordan (J&J) via a recent FTF News Live interview.
Tom Jordan
For decades, trading firms have been working to improve the transaction processing speeds and reliability of their front-office trading environments under the aegis of market regulators, Jordan says.
“But, more and more, I’m seeing that the focus is turning … to the middle and back office if you would because the efficiency is in the front end already,” Jordan says. “I see a lot of the trend toward middle and back office in terms of the overall settlement process.”
Firms are realizing that there are a lot of manual processes in the middle and back office that need to be made more efficient via automation, Jordan says. “It all has to do with overall efficiency … Can we make our business more efficient? So, that’s where the focus is,” he says.
The interview also focused on J&J’s recent news – it sold key parts of its business to major industry players like Broadridge Financial Solutions.
Broadridge bolstered its regulatory compliance services for broker-dealers by acquiring J&J’s Execution Compliance and Surveillance Service (ECS) assets. The Broadridge transaction followed the sale of J&J’s market data reporting (MDR) business to TRG Screen, a provider of market data enterprise subscription spending management procedures and processes.
Jordan provided insights into those business transactions and focused on other issues:
- Updates on J&J’s market data, technology, and association practices;
- Where the industry is as far as Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) compliance;
- org and the RIXML Standards Suite;
- Open-source software and Wall Street firms;
- The new realities for Wall Street Ops caused by the pandemic;
- The market moves toward cryptocurrencies;
- The impacts of artificial intelligence (A.I.) technologies on Ops;
- And much more.
Please click on the image above to watch the entire interview.
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