1. Best Buy-Side Collateral Management Solution

Optimizing collateral management has come into sharp focus for many buy-side firms especially as they have had to revamp their infrastructures to meet new regulatory regimes. Advances via distributed ledger technology (DLT) and artificial intelligence (A.I.) are easing workflows and compliance burdens. This award honors the provider, consultant, or internal IT organization that has been the most effective in helping buy-side operations staff achieve higher levels of internal efficiency in the oversight of collateral.

2. 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.

3. Best Clearing and Settlement Solution

The voters will be rewarding the solution provider that has achieved a new level of excellence via innovation for transaction clearing and settlement operations. The competition is opened to established providers and the newcomers that are breaking ground for cutting-edge financial instruments, especially via disruptive and emerging technologies, workflows, and collaborative efforts.

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-Native Computing Platform

This award category focuses on the next chapter in cloud computing – cloud-native advances that are paving the way for digital transformations and other evolutionary strategies. This category is open to managed service and cloud-native solutions providers, and to companies that offer infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS); platform-as-as-service (PaaS); and software-as-a-service (SaaS) implementations.

6. Best Compliance Solution

This award is for the solution that delivers a distinguished offering in a specialized area, designed to help meet a critical compliance need. The winning supplier must demonstrate an ability to keep pace with an evolving industry and show a level of achievement in improving their clients’ needs to meet obligations and optimize their operations. Solutions eligible for nomination can be from any niche area of compliance for equities, fixed income, and derivative instruments. In addition, solutions that focus on relevant aspects of regulatory, legal, data, social, and IT compliance are also eligible.

7. Best Corporate Actions Data Provider

Corporate actions processing needs reliable data from publicly-traded companies that is distributed in a variety of efficient channels that meet customers’ particular requirements. The winner in this category offers clients the most comprehensive global coverage in a timely manner and via a user-friendly, consolidated view. The top provider in this category has a complete offering that lowers operational risks for clients.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. Best Cyber-Security Solution

For achievement in this category, the cyber-security winner will have had to demonstrate effective protection against malware, ransomware, data hacks, and new security challenges such as those via mobile devices and cryptocurrency-based financial products.

11. Best Digital Transformation Solutions Provider

Many firms are revving up their digital transformations for securities operations. Firms are exploring for their digital journeys artificial intelligence (A.I.) solutions, machine learning (ML) technologies, and disruptive influences such as blockchain/distributed ledger technologies (DLT) used for cryptocurrency-based transactions. The common factor is that these systems are beginning to challenge incumbent middle- and back-office systems. This award focuses attention on the breakthrough systems are advancing securities operations the most.

12. Best Digital Workplace Collaboration System

Secure messaging and videoconferencing systems are playing new and important roles at financial services firms. These roles were enhanced by the pandemic-induced lockdown and market volatility challenges of 2020. The award in this category would spotlight the third-party provider or the internally developed system that offered the most secure, cost-effective capabilities to facilitate important trade support functions overseen by securities operations. The winning system would also offer new channels between sell-side and buy-side firms, and between securities firms and their clients.

13. Best Financial Crime Surveillance Technology

Internal and external financial crimes against financial institutions are on the rise and firms are fighting this battle on many fronts. Providers have been advancing solutions to combat internal and external acts of fraud, insider trading, money laundering, terrorist financing, and multiple forms of corruption. This award will shine the light upon software, services, systems, and advances in surveillance that help firms protect themselves from danger and reputational damage.

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. Best New Post-Trade Solution

This distinction focuses attention on the solution from a startup or an established provider that launched an exceptional offering during the past year. The new product should bring new efficiencies and new benefits to middle- or back-office systems. The new offerings 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.

17. 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.

18. Best Ops Data Management Solution

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.

19. Best OTC Derivatives Margining Solution

Over-the-counter (OTC) and listed derivatives processing have endured major reforms and regulatory changes over the past decade. This award will focus attention on the provider that has stayed ahead of the curve for the many facets of derivative operations and kept its customers ahead of the competition. The winner in this category should be able to demonstrate how it helps streamline transaction creation and execution, optimize documentation support, eliminate error-prone manual steps, and meet the ongoing challenges of the uncleared margin rules (UMR) for non-centrally cleared derivatives.

20. Best Outsourcing Provider

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.

21. 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.

22. 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.

23. 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.

24. 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.

25. Best Sell-Side Collateral Management Solution

The collateral management complex involves many participants including sell-side firms that must work closely in conjunction with counterparties. This award recognizes the accomplishments of a provider, consultancy, industry organization, or internal IT group that has made great strides in helping sell-side operations maximize their collateral management operations via advances to the workflow, IT systems, and counterparty interactions.

26. Best Systems Integrator Amid the COVID-19 Crisis

The onset of the global pandemic caused Ops teams to quickly transform themselves so that they could work remotely and have greater mobility in response to lockdown challenges. Many firms turned to third-party systems integrators and consultancies to set up and maintain what became lifelines for operations. Some of the top areas of concern were support for remote trading and operations, business continuity, secure conferencing systems, reliable virtual private networks (VPNs), and efficient cloud computing.

27. FinTech Person of the Year

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.

28. Ops Businessperson of the Year

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.

29. 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.

30. 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.

31. The Editor’s Choice Award for 2021

The Editor’s Choice Award for 2021 will focus upon an individual or an organization that spurred positive changes via a socially responsible initiative. The chief content officer for FTF, the FTF staff, and eligible FTF awards participants can nominate a provider, industry group, end-user financial services firm, user group, or industry participant that has successfully raised awareness about a humanitarian concern. The FTF staff will review the nominees and select the recipient of this honor. The group or individual to be honored can be from any post-trade operations areas.

32. The FTF News Philanthropic Award 2021