Buy-side Perspectives Issue 6 | Page 17

final regulatory framework of MiFIDII there can be no doubt surveillance and compliance will represent an increasing cost overhead in the future of execution. The introduction of regularly documented process management and increased investor / consultant driven reporting, will exacerbate a move towards straight through order management and audited standard execution workflow. A rise in automation and predefined routing will look to support this process within a documented execution framework – fixed order handling approach – stipulated under RTS6 within the MiFIDII umbrella (Annex I). October 2016 We have already witnessed increased smart order and aggregated venue routing across buyside firms managing retail, small order and vanilla cash flows. These fixed benchmark flows (NAV time-stamp, MOC or IS) lend themselves to standardised algorithmic and low impact execution strategies. In the next generation, we foresee a rising risk tolerance to automated direct strategies access (DSA) as desks utilise EMS technologies to auto-sweep low risk tolerance orders within a fixed framework order handling approach. This is executed via a defined list of best in class market counterparties and algorithmic liquidity providers. www.buysideintel.com Questions to readers: 1. To what extent will the evolution of fixed order handling drive increased STP in execution? 2. How far can EMS smart order routing develop to minimise manual intervention in execution? 3. Do traders need to spend more time developing an ECM liquidity approach for large in scale block orders? Citi welcomes reader comments. Please email responses to [email protected]. 17