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Buy-side remain largely satisfied with EMS providers despite market headwinds
Though acknowledging areas for improvement – namely among product development and cost of operation – this year ’ s survey achieved an overall score of 5.91 , just three basis points less than last year ’ s record score of 5.94 , implying general satisfaction among the buy-side when it comes to their EMS providers .
Concerns over the threat of a recession have subsided in recent months but inflation has continued to throw markets toward a correction and at times has whipsawed volatility . Despite the ongoing concerns and market dynamics , buyside respondents to this year ’ s survey appear to remain largely satisfied with the way their EMS providers are adapting . The largest pain point , however , appears to be product development , which was the lowest scoring service area recorded in 2024 and also experienced the largest year-over-year decline in rating from last year . Buy-side firms clearly believe EMS
80 // TheTRADE // Q3 2024 providers have plenty of room to improve when it comes to solution capabilities and product enhancements . The next lowest score was recorded in overall cost of operation , as cost remains a major concern as traders must deal with covering multi-asset trading and investments with limited budgets . The 2024 edition of The TRADE ’ s Execution Management Systems Survey highlights continued satisfaction traders and other buy-side respondents had with their providers over the past year , with scores decreasing only slightly from those recorded in the 2023 edition of the survey . This year ’ s results revealed subtle changes in nearly every category with an overall survey average of 5.91 in 2024 , just three basis points less than last year ’ s record setting overall average of 5.94 . Figure 1 shows the average scores recorded from buy-side respondents over the past three years across 13 functional EMS categories . Reliability and availability remained the highest rated category in 2024 with the exact same score of 6.38 as the previous year . Also scoring above a 6.0 ( very good ) were FIX capabilities ( 6.18 ), latency ( 6.13 ), breadth of broker algorithms ( 6.05 ) and client service personnel ( 6.01 ). On the other hand , product development ( 5.52 ) logged