[ S U R V E Y | E X E C U T I O N M A N A G E M E N T S Y S T E M S ]
Figure 4 : Number of Providers Used (% of respondents ) |
Provider count |
percent _ of _ respondents 2023 |
percent _ of _ respondents 2022 |
1 |
60 |
64 |
2 |
31 |
25 |
3 |
7 |
9 |
4 |
2 |
2 |
5 + |
1 |
1 |
traders ( 47 %) and heads of trading ( 23 %) once again made up the majority of respondents ( Figure 2 ). Those intimately involved in the trading process often hold the authority on which EMS to use , making them an ideal audience for this survey . The next largest group comprised of those in other roles ( 15 %), including technology operations and support , who like traders , also offer unique insight into how these systems are working within their respective buy-side firms .
Survey respondents were asked to select up to four features of execution management systems that they consider to be most important ( Figure 3 ). Once again , ease-of-use was named as the most important feature of their EMS by around 68 % of respondents , followed by connectivity and integration with internal systems at 45.5 %, post-implementation client service at 43.8 % and number of connections to different brokers at 39.6 %. Respondents again noted FIX capabilities as being their least important feature overall , with only 13.7 % listing it among their top four . Considering the maturity of FIX connectivity , it ’ s likely that this has become a non-differentiated capability and instead a base expectation for the community . Where we expect connectivity to become a more important feature is in areas of growth in the use of EMS ’ for example credit and rates trading .
Figure 5 : Average Number of Providers by AuM
total assets bnUSD |
average number providers 2023 |
average number providers 2022 |
Up to 0.5 |
1.32 |
1.41 |
0.5-1 |
1.47 |
1.17 |
1-10 |
1.45 |
1.44 |
10-50 |
1.50 |
1.59 |
More than 50 |
1.62 |
1.73 |
The ways in which buy-side firms rank the most important features of their EMS speaks to the evolving priorities and capabilities of the solutions providers in the market . Coming on the back of significant improvements in product functionality , it is not surprising to see features related to implementation and upgrades jump in importance . In 2023 , the most significant year-on-year increases in feature importance was connectivity with internal systems , which rose 5.14 %, followed by increases in post-implementation client service (+ 3.72 %) and timeliness of implementing updates (+ 3.25 %). In addition , number of asset classes covered (+ 3.22 %) continued to increase in importance highlighting ongoing demand for expanded EMS functional product capabilities .
While systems consolidation has been an ongoing seismic trend amongst the buy-side it appears EMS systems continue to resist that trend . While 60 % of firms responding to this year ’ s survey claim to use only one EMS , 40 % claim to use two or more ( Figure 4 ). With the growth in fixed income EMS ’, the market is likely to see increased use of multiple systems until product evolution allows for true multi-asset class capabilities that can be adopted holistically by the buy-side . In fact , when respondents were asked to indicate their method for connecting for electronic trading , more than one third ( 36 %) stated they use multiple single broker and / or single asset class EMS . In addition , another one third of respondents ( 33 %) noted that they link directly to brokers from their OMS while 13 % said they link directly to trading venues via their internal systems .
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