Desktop interoperability has long been the missing piece in unifying fast-moving, multi-application trading workflows. At this year’s TradingTech Insight Awards USA, HERE – the enterprise browser born from OpenFin’s pioneering container technology – was recognised for closing that gap, capturing the award for Best Desktop Interoperability Framework.
TradingTech Insight took the opportunity to sit down with Mitra Roknabadi, HERE’s Chief Marketing Officer, to explore how the firm’s Chromium-based approach is reshaping capital-markets desktops, why interoperability is now table-stakes for productivity, and where the technology is heading next.
What follows is a candid Q&A that dives into the origins of HERE’s framework, the way it embeds FDC3 standards, and the tangible efficiency gains already being logged by tier-one banks, asset managers and government agencies alike.
TTI: Firstly, congratulations on being named the winner for Best Desktop Interoperability Framework at the TTI USA Awards! What does this recognition mean to the team at HERE?
MR: We’re absolutely delighted – interoperability is core to everything we’ve been doing at HERE (formerly OpenFin) from our roots in Chromium container technology to our evolution into a full enterprise-grade browser.
Desktop interoperability was part of the very first version of our software that we released back in 2012. It’s been critical to helping our financial institution customers unify workflows and app experience across countless internal and third-party apps.
Today, we’ve built HERE Enterprise Browser on the same foundational interoperability framework, enabling our customers to unify their digital workspace in a fraction of the time. The solution is turnkey – so a platform that previously took a year or more to build is now ready to deploy in a matter of days or weeks. Our enterprise browser supercharges productivity by eliminating app toggling and integrating workflows, data and notifications into a single, intuitive interface – something traditional browsers were never designed to do.
Our team is incredibly grateful for this recognition and for the trust that leading banks, asset managers, Fortune 500s and even government agencies have placed in us to modernize their digital workspaces.
TTI: Drawing on your deep experience in this space, including your legacy as OpenFin, could you describe the core problem that HERE currently solves for capital markets firms when it comes to desktop interoperability?
MR: In capital markets, traders and other knowledge workers rely on dozens of apps every day – CRMs, trading platforms, research tools, compliance systems and more. The problem is that these applications often operate in silos, leaving users to juggle multiple windows and manually rekey information across systems. This constant context switching, known as the “toggle tax,” can happen up to 1,200 times a day per user, draining productivity and leading to errors that impact critical decisions.
Traditional browsers and fragmented desktops compound the issue, as they weren’t designed to handle the unique security and performance demands of enterprise workflows. As OpenFin, we spent over a decade seeing first hand how disconnected systems slow down decision-making and increase operational risk. Our focus has always been to empower financial institutions to unify their apps, data and workflows – creating a seamless, efficient and secure desktop environment.
HERE Enterprise Browser was a natural evolution of this mission: turning the browser itself into a powerful, unified workspace that’s designed for the demands of modern capital markets.
TTI: What are the fundamental components of your award-winning framework, and how do they empower financial institutions to create more integrated and efficient user experiences?
MR: HERE is built on Google Chromium, the same engine that powers Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge. On top of Chromium, we’ve introduced several critical components that fundamentally change the traditional browsing experience into one purpose-built for work. HERE has a powerful interoperability bus that is built right into the browser to enable secure data sharing and workflow between apps running in isolated processes. Our advanced layout system enables users to group apps and browser tabs into unified, task-based layouts (called Supertabs), dramatically reducing tab overload and enabling traders to multitask more efficiently without constant toggling. Our browser search bar takes searching to the next level with a deep search that simultaneously surfaces actionable results across multiple apps – that’s why we call it SuperSearch. HERE has its own Notification Center that provides numerous capabilities needed for productivity and not available in the Windows and Mac notification centers. Perhaps most exciting of all, we recently introduced an AI Center to enable our customers to securely plug-in their enterprise AI models directly into the browser. Our approach simplifies AI adoption, strengthens data governance and gives AI models the context of the user’s workspace to generate more accurate and relevant answers.
Together, these features create a unified, secure and highly productive environment that empowers financial professionals to work smarter, respond faster and make more informed decisions.
TTI: The Financial Desktop Connectivity and Collaboration Consortium (FDC3) standards are pivotal. How does HERE leverage and perhaps even build upon these standards to deliver superior interoperability?
MR: As the founder and initial driving force behind FDC3, we helped define the open standard for plug-and-play interoperability among desktop apps. In 2017, we collaborated with industry leaders to create FDC3, and in 2018, we contributed it to FINOS to ensure its long-term governance and independent development.
Today, we’re building on this foundation by embedding FDC3 standards directly into the HERE Enterprise Browser. This allows apps to share data and context seamlessly, reducing operational risk and driving workflow harmony across complex financial ecosystems. To further support our customers’ interoperability needs, we have also built significant additional capabilities including high-speed, on-device data streaming and multi-device, FDC3-compliant interoperability.
TTI: Can you share some (perhaps anonymized) examples or use cases of how clients are using HERE to overcome specific challenges and achieve tangible benefits, such as improved trader productivity or streamlined workflows?
MR: HERE has delivered transformative results across capital markets ranging from front to back office, helping firms eliminate silos and streamline complex workflows. The data points from our clients are impressive and include a 40% improvement in KYC/AML workflows, significant risk reduction and productivity benefits for fixed income traders and enabled the retirement of legacy technology reducing the clients operating cost by over $50m. The breadth of use cases and associated savings has been staggering over the years.
One particularly notable success: in collaboration with IPC, HERE powered the OneView Portfolio – a next-generation voice trading solution that integrates third-party apps and enterprise workflows into a unified desktop experience. This collaboration rapidly deployed an intuitive, flexible interface that traders embraced for its reduced toggling, streamlined workflows and richer functionality. LSEG Group is also building their next gen capability on our technology and we are excited to see this hitting client desktops in 2025.
Across multiple clients, we’ve consistently delivered a minimum 20% productivity boost by transforming fragmented workflows into integrated, seamless experiences. These outcomes are made possible by Here’s ability to unify applications, eliminate context switching and enable faster access to tools and data – empowering teams to work smarter, more securely and at scale.
TTI: Considering the most significant trends you’re observing in the financial desktop space, what is Here’s vision for its evolution, particularly concerning the demand for seamless application integration and data sharing?
MR: It’s no surprise that the most significant trend we’re seeing this year is the focus on generative AI and large language models (LLMs). As banks, asset managers and hedge funds embrace this new technology, they’re looking for secure ways to integrate these tools into their daily processes and adoption has been a key challenge. At HERE, we’ve introduced a new AI Center to the browser to support context-aware AI that delivers intelligent insights across all apps, without compromising data privacy. It’s a game-changer.
A second major trend we’re seeing is in browser security. Hybrid work models are driving the need for zero-trust security frameworks that protect sensitive data at every layer – right down to the browser tab. This shift is a response to growing regulatory scrutiny and the need to secure confidential financial data against emerging threats. To address this need, we’ve added advanced security controls to HERE Enterprise Browser, enabling central administrators to restrict copy-paste, screen capture, screen sharing and printing on an app-by-app basis.
These two key trends of AI and security are fundamental to our vision at HERE as we build the world’s best browser for work: a browser that simultaneously supercharges productivity, enables enterprise AI and enhances enterprise security.
TTI: Can you give us a glimpse into any upcoming developments or new initiatives from HERE that will further enhance your desktop interoperability offerings?
MR: We have many exciting developments on the horizon to take interoperability to the next level. Today, enabling interoperability using FDC3 requires some amount of coding and it’s especially challenging when it comes to apps whose code you don’t control. We’re going to make it possible to enable interoperability for any app with no coding required. We now also have the analytics to understand how apps are being used in concert with one another. It gives us the ability to intelligently automate workflows, anticipating what the user will want to do next, and again without the need for coding. A little further out, we’ll be moving from enabling Gen AI to powering agentic AI, all built on top of our interoperability framework with security controls and a seamless experience for the human in the loop.
TTI: Thank you, Mitra
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