[ 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 ]
Europe( 20 %), Asia Pacific( 20 %) and the UK( 11 %).
While the role of EMS platforms within the trading infrastructure of buy-side firms has been solidified over the past two decades, concerns over cost controls and the fact that most actively trading buy-side firms already leverage at least one EMS seems to have dampened
Figure 7: Region distribution
1 % ROW
20 %
Asia Pacific
20 %
Europe
11 % UK any significant push in terms of overall adoption, as over 86 % of respondents showed no interest in adding a new EMS to the current infrastructure. Similarly, 88 % of respondents indicated no plans for replacing existing solutions in the coming year.
Despite this slowdown as well as the mixed bag of feedback from the survey respondents, there is
48 % North America no doubt that the opportunities surrounding the EMS technology market will continue to grow and more than likely accelerate over the next few years as the electronification of non-equity asset classes continue to grow as well as the entrance of new asset classes such as cryptocurrencies. And, as this trend continues, the demand for more sophisticated built-in trade analytics will only increase as well as the need to improve integrated workflow with the OMS as well as other downstream applications. In short, the EMS market appears to be taking a short pause before entering the next phase of growth.
This year, ten EMS vendor firms garnered sufficient responses from buy-side users for inclusion in the provider profiles: Bloomberg, Charles River, FactSet’ s Portware, FlexTrade, Instinet Newport, LSEG TORA, Neovest, TS Imagine, SS & C Eze – RealTick and Virtu Triton. Among the profiled vendors, four outperformed the overall survey average of 5.71: FlexTrade, LSEG TORA, Neovest and Virtu Triton.
Methodology Survey respondents were asked to provide a rating for each execution management system( EMS) provider on a numerical scale from 1.0( very weak) through to 7.0( excellent), covering 13 functional criteria. In general, 5.0( good) represents the‘ default’ score of respondents. In total, over 315 individuals responded; around 500 evaluations were submitted; and over 20 providers were evaluated. All evaluations were used to compile the overall market review information as well as provider profiles covering the major EMS providers based on responses received. Each evaluation was weighted according to three characteristics of the respondent; the value of assets under management; the scale of business being conducted electronically; and the number of different providers being used. In this way, the evaluations of the largest and broadest EMS users were weighted at up to twice the weight of the smallest and least experienced respondent. In arriving at any overall calculations, the scores received in respect of each of the 13 functional categories were further weighted according to the importance attached to them by survey respondents. The aim is to ensure that in assessing service provision the greatest impact results from the scores received from the most sophisticated users in the areas they regard as the most important. Finally, it should be noted that responses provided by affiliated entities have been discarded and that other responses, where respondents were unable to be properly verified, were also excluded. We hope that readers find this approach both informative and useful as they assess different capabilities in the future. This year’ s analysis for the EMS survey has been carried out by Datos Insights.
66 // TheTRADE // Q3 2025