1. Best A.I. Solution

Generative artificial intelligence (gen A.I.) has made a big splash in the securities industry and many firms and providers are exploring how to apply this game-changing technology to data, analytics, accounting, databases, cloud services, modeling, and operations for wealth and asset management, investment banking, and securities transactions. Industry participants are also applying gen A.I. to unstructured data, client engagements, corporate actions, and manual tasks and systems. The winner in this category must demonstrate how its gen A.I. solution greatly improved a key operation for financial institutions or led to a breakthrough.

2. Best Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Provider

This award honors the provider delivering comprehensive, end-to-end outsourced operations for securities firms. Eligible offerings include full lift-out of middle- or back-office functions such as trade processing, reconciliation, fund accounting, or corporate actions. The winner will demonstrate operational excellence, cost efficiency, and seamless integration with client environments.

3. Best Buy-Side Operation Solution

This award honors the provider that delivers an outstanding suite of securities operations solutions tailored for buy-side institutions — including asset managers, investment firms, wealth funds, insurance firms, and pension funds and other asset owners. Solutions may be deployed on-premise, in the cloud, fully outsourced, or delivered via a hybrid model, and should support firms navigating increasingly complex portfolios, regulatory environments, and data ecosystems. The award is meant to reward the provider whose ambitious, enterprise-wide offerings have exceeded expectations.

4. Best Client Reporting Solution

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.

5. Best Cloud & Infrastructure Modernization Solution

This award acknowledges the achievement a provider has made in helping financial services institutions evolve their technology infrastructure to meet the demands of modern capital markets. Nominees may demonstrate excellence in one or more of the following areas: enabling seamless hybrid or multi-cloud operations; accelerating cloud transformation and migration from legacy systems; or delivering scalable, resilient infrastructure that supports growth and innovation. The winning solution will show measurable impact in helping firms achieve greater agility, efficiency, and operational readiness for emerging technologies such as AI and advanced analytics.

6. Best Collateral Management Solution

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.

7. Best Corporate Actions Service Provider

Corporate actions processing is on a new evolutionary path as firms make greater demands for speed, accuracy, and resiliency. This award spotlights the provider that has incorporated industry standards, advanced automation, intelligent data management, ESG data, and applied emerging technologies such as AI and machine learning to transform corporate actions workflows. Nominees should demonstrate how their solution helps clients reduce risk, minimize manual intervention, and accelerates decision-making via AI-driven insights, predictive processing, or exception handling playing key roles. The winner in this category will have helped its clients move closer to fully automated, straight through processing, and real-time responsiveness, even amid growing event complexity and data fragmentation.

8. Best Cutting-Edge Solution

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.

9. Best Cybersecurity & Data Protection Solution

This award cites the provider that has developed effective cybersecurity and data protection capabilities tailored to the needs of capital markets firms. Eligible solutions may address threat detection, incident response, data loss prevention, encryption, identity and access management, third-party risk monitoring, privacy compliance, or security operations automation. The winner will demonstrate how its solution helps firms participating in financial services protect critical infrastructure, safeguard sensitive data, disaster recovery, and maintain operational continuity.

10. Best Data Aggregator

This category rewards the provider that excels in delivering comprehensive data aggregation capabilities. The winning solution must demonstrate excellence in collecting, normalizing, and centralizing data from diverse internal and external sources, enabling firms to establish a single source of truth across the enterprise.

Nominees should showcase innovation in handling structured and unstructured data, real-time aggregation, and support for complex data governance requirements. This includes the ability to aggregate and harmonize data across public and private markets, including private equity and other alternative asset classes, where transparency, lineage, and timeliness of data are increasingly vital.

This category celebrates solutions that help middle and back-office operations overcome data fragmentation, enhance decision-making, and drive operational efficiency.

11. Best Data Integration Solution

This award spotlights the most effective and innovative solution for seamless data integration. The winning solution must enable firms to aggregate, harmonize, and manage data from diverse sources, ensuring accuracy, consistency, and accessibility across systems, workflows, and internal teams at end-user firms. Nominees should demonstrate excellence in facilitating interoperability, reducing data silos, and enhancing decision-making through advanced integration capabilities such as application programming interfaces (APIs), advancement in AI, cloud-based technologies, and real-time synchronization. This category celebrates solutions that empower firms to unlock the full potential of their data and drive operational efficiency.

12. Best Data Management Solution

Managing data across sources, formats, and asset classes 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 securities operations and beyond. This award honors the provider that has demonstrated it can help firms organize, manage, and leverage their multiple data sources to optimize their value and pave the way for greater advancements to come.

13. Best Data Provider

This award salutes the provider that delivers comprehensive, accurate, and timely original data to support securities operations. The winner serves as a primary source for market data, reference data, pricing, corporate actions, indices, and other essential data sets. The top provider in this category offers broad global coverage, seamless access across asset classes, and a user-friendly experience that reduces operational risk and enables clients to make confident decisions.

14. Best Derivatives Operations Solution

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.

15. Best Digital Asset Solution

This award celebrates the provider that delivers pioneering solutions for digital asset operations. Eligible areas include improving digital asset clearing and settlement, custody, reconciliation, tokenization, compliance, or integration with traditional securities operations. The digital asset categories for consideration are cryptocurrency-based securities, tokenized securities, or other cutting-edge blockchain-based assets that can be traded. The winner will demonstrate how its solution helps firms manage digital assets securely, efficiently, and at scale.

16. Best Fraud Prevention Solution

This award recognizes the provider that is a leader in offering strong fraud detection and prevention capabilities for capital markets firms. Eligible solutions may address real-time transaction monitoring, anomaly detection, identity verification, account takeover prevention, payment fraud, or insider threat detection. The winner will offer proof that its solution helps firms protect clients and operations from financial and reputational harm.

17. Best Generative AI Solution

This award recognizes the provider leveraging generative AI to transform securities operations. Eligible applications include automated content and commentary generation, document summarization, conversational interfaces, code generation, or workflow automation powered by large language models. The winner will demonstrate how its solution reduces manual effort, accelerates processes, or delivers new capabilities that were previously impractical for middle- and back-office operations.

18. Best Global Settlement Solution

This award commends the provider that has achieved operational breakthroughs for essential clearing and settlement operations. Eligible areas for consideration are trade matching and confirmation, settlement processing, fails management, cross-border settlement, T+1 optimization, real-time settlement capabilities, and clearing and settlement initiatives for digital assets.  The winner will demonstrate how its solution helps firms achieve greater speed, accuracy, and efficiency in completing transactions across markets and asset classes.

19. Best Machine Learning Solution

This award applauds the provider applying machine learning to enhance securities operations. Eligible applications include predictive analytics, anomaly detection, pattern recognition, data classification, forecasting, or intelligent automation that learns and improves over time.  The winner will need to show measurable impact in areas such as trade processing, risk management, surveillance, compliance, or operational efficiency.

20. Best Managed Services Provider

This award acknowledges achievement by the provider delivering flexible, ongoing operational support for securities operations. Eligible offerings include co-sourcing arrangements, staff augmentation, or hybrid service models that complement a firm's existing capabilities. The winner will have a history of responsiveness, reliability, and the ability to scale with client needs.

21. Best Middle-Office Solution

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.

22. Best Middle-to-Back-Office Integration Solution

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.

23. Best Operational Analytics Solution

This award recognizes the provider that has made a commitment to advance analytics capabilities for middle- and back-office operations. Eligible solutions may address trade analytics, settlement and fails analysis, reconciliation insights, data quality monitoring, workflow optimization, compliance surveillance, or operational efficiency metrics. The winner will demonstrate how its solution helps firms turn operational data into actionable insights that improve decision-making and drive efficiency.

24. Best Operational Risk Management Solution

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.

25. Best Performance Measurement System

This award celebrates the provider with a proven record of offering optimal performance measurement capabilities that help firms evaluate and communicate investment results. Eligible solutions have made advances in returns calculation, portfolio and composite performance, attribution analysis for equity and fixed-income portfolios, benchmark comparisons, ex-post risk measurement, or GIPS compliance. The winner will exemplify how a provider helps clients achieve accuracy, efficiency, and clarity in measuring and reporting performance.

26. Best Private Markets Operations Solution

Private markets have become one of the fastest-growing segments in financial services, and the operational infrastructure required to support them demands specialized capabilities that traditional securities technology was never built to provide. From ingesting unstructured fund documents and processing loan agent notices to calculating NAV across complex fund structures, monitoring covenants, and delivering accurate investor reporting across illiquid asset classes — the complexity is real and growing. This award recognizes the solution that has made the greatest impact on private markets operations in 2025. Eligible offerings include platforms, services, and tools that automate and govern the full lifecycle of private markets operations across data ingestion, portfolio monitoring, fund accounting, reconciliation, investor servicing, and reporting. The winner will demonstrate measurable operational improvement and a proven ability to help firms scale without proportional increases in cost or headcount.

27. Best Professional Services Provider

This award recognizes the provider delivering specialized expertise and customized support for capital markets firms. Eligible services include technology implementation, operational consulting, systems integration, data strategy, quantitative development, or staff augmentation across traditional and alternative asset classes. The winner will demonstrate how its tailored approach helps clients solve complex challenges and achieve measurable results.

28. Best Reconciliation Solution

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.

29. Best RegTech & Compliance Provider

This award recognizes the most impactful and innovative solutions that excel in meeting critical financial governance, risk management, and compliance needs and supports regulatory technology (RegTech) initiatives. Eligible offerings must showcase their ability to streamline compliance, enhance regulatory reporting, and address evolving requirements, such as anti-money laundering (AML), economic sanctions, and global financial regulations. Nominees should present how their technology supports firms across equities, fixed income, and derivatives markets, enabling participants to meet regulatory demands efficiently while driving operational excellence. In addition, solutions that help firms focus on relevant aspects of regulatory, legal, data, social, and IT management excellence are also eligible. This category affirms RegTech providers that deliver cutting-edge solutions to help firms navigate the complexities of today’s regulatory landscape.

30. Best Regulatory Reporting Solution

Keeping up with regulatory reporting requirements is an ongoing burden for financial services firms that is only going to become more challenging. Automating processes across an enterprise is daunting for firms, and the industry is exploring a variety of models to support regulatory technology (RegTech). The surge in ESG-based investing has also created a new area of concern for firms that need to prove to investors they are not engaged in greenwashing. This award honors the solutions provider that has made a commitment to advancing data integrity and data governance, ending repetitive processes, and streamlining reporting across the enterprise and to regulators.

31. FinTech Business Leader of the Year

This award celebrates a business-side executive at a fintech or solutions provider who has driven growth, strategy, or operational excellence. The honoree may be a CEO, COO, President, Chief Strategy Officer, Chief Product Officer, Head of Product, or similar leader responsible for business strategy, product direction, or company operations. The winner will have a history of pursuing a vision in scaling their organization, expanding market presence, or advancing the firm's competitive position.

32. Service Provider of the Year

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.

33. Software Solution of the Year

This is one of the most prestigious honors in the FTF Awards program, recognizing a software solution that has made an outstanding impact on securities operations. The winner will have delivered clear business benefits, advanced the state of the industry, and demonstrated innovation that sets it apart from the competition. This award goes beyond excellence in a single function—it celebrates a solution that has transformed how firms operate.

34. Technology Leader of the Year

This award spotlights a technology executive at a groundbreaking fintech company or a solutions provider with a history of excellence that has driven innovation in capital markets technology. The honoree may be a CTO, CIO, Chief Data Officer, Chief AI Officer, Head of Technology, Head of Engineering, or similar leader responsible for technology strategy, product development, or platform innovation. The winner will have demonstrated vision in advancing their firm's technology capabilities, delivering breakthrough solutions, or shaping the direction of the industry.