About a-team Marketing Services
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry

A-Team Insight Blogs

Final Thoughts on Sifma, Past and Present

Subscribe to our newsletter

The first SIA (now Sifma) show I attended was in 1986. In some ways, it was quite different to the event last week, while in other ways it was pretty much the same.

Entering the main show floor in 1986, one would be confronted by the big Quotron booth, with sales head George Levine in residence. Quotron, and of course its prime position at the show, was acquired by Reuters a few years back (well, actually I think parent Citigroup paid them to take it off their balance sheet). But George remains a fixture on the booth, and that’s reasuring for many of us.

George can probably remember what it was like in the financial technology world of the mid 1980s better than I can. It was a frothy time, not unlike today, with deregulation leading to massive investment in trading systems. Now, it’s regulatation that’s driving a lot of that investment. Financial tech vendors always find opportunities to sell.

I have certain recollections of the show floor back then. Imnet – a joint venture between Merrill Lynch and IBM – was present. That initiative went belly up a little while later, and many pointed out that the notion of a sell-side firm being in the technology business was just plain daft. Daft it may be, but these days, the sell side can’t get enough of firms offering order routing and algo trading technology – now seen as important components of strategies to win order flow.

I also remember vendors like Micrognosis, FD Consulting, CP Technology, Bishopsgate, Program-IT and many others all competing in the digital and video trading room market data distribution business, in which Reuters and its Triarch system was probably the leader in terms of sales, if not quite in terms of technology. Just about all of those vendors got acquired, went bust and dropped out of the trading room marketplace, as Reuters got a stranglehold on it, most recently with its RMDS offering.

So it’s with a significant sense of deja-vu that this time I observed companies like Activ Financial, Wombat, 29 West, Infodyne, QuantHouse, and Reuters of course, all competing in the new-ish market for low latency architectures. What’s going to become of all these players? Well, if I were a betting man, I’d try to learn from history.

Until next time … here’s some good music.

[tags]sifma,reuters,quotron,imnet,micrognosis,wombat,29 west,activ,infodyne,quant house[/tags]

Subscribe to our newsletter

Related content

WEBINAR

Recorded Webinar: Unlocking Competitive Edge with Outsourcing and Managed Services in Trading Technology

Outsourcing has emerged as a strategic solution for capital markets firms as trading technology infrastructures become more complex, data volumes grow exponentially, and regulatory pressures intensify. .By leveraging third-party expertise, firms can optimise operations, reduce costs, and focus on innovation in their trading technology stack. Outsourcing potentially enables firms to scale seamlessly, meet regulatory reporting...

BLOG

LTX Launches BondGPT Intelligence to Deepen AI Integration in Bond Trading Workflows

LTX, the AI-powered corporate bond trading platform backed by Broadridge Financial Solutions Inc., has launched BondGPT Intelligence, a new capability that embeds generative AI directly into the trading workflow. The functionality is designed to anticipate users’ needs in real time and deliver targeted insights without requiring them to leave the platform. According to Jim Kwiatkowski,...

EVENT

RegTech Summit London

Now in its 9th year, the RegTech Summit in London will bring together the RegTech ecosystem to explore how the European capital markets financial industry can leverage technology to drive innovation, cut costs and support regulatory change.

GUIDE

AI in Capital Markets: Practical Insight for a Transforming Industry – Free Handbook

AI is no longer on the horizon – it’s embedded in the infrastructure of modern capital markets. But separating real impact from inflated promises requires a grounded, practical understanding. The AI in Capital Markets Handbook 2025 provides exactly that. Designed for data-driven professionals across the trade life-cycle, compliance, infrastructure, and strategy, this handbook goes beyond...