Two months after completing its acquisition of BT’s Radianz business, Transaction Network Services (TNS) has launched Waypoint Trading Solutions, a unified brand encompassing connectivity, low-latency trading infrastructure and managed market data operations.
Waypoint Trading Solutions officially launched on 8th April, bringing together TNS’s existing financial markets capabilities with the Radianz extranet business it acquired from BT in a deal that completed in February 2026 after being announced in September 2025. The new entity is organised across three pillars: Radianz, which provides global trading connectivity through what TNS describes as the world’s largest financial extranet; Xpress, a managed low-latency platform for high-performance exchange access; and Sentinel, a new brand for the firm’s managed market data operations.
The combined business supports connectivity to more than 180 exchanges and over 6,500 financial market endpoints across more than 70 countries, serving over 1,000 financial institutions.
Tom Lazenga, who moves from General Manager of TNS Financial Markets to President of Waypoint Trading Solutions, tells TradingTech Insight that the rebrand had been in contemplation since the Radianz deal was agreed.
“You’ve got two businesses with a rich history – both have been around for more than 20 years, both are well-known brands with a lot of pride and expertise,” he says. “We wanted a single unifying message. It’s as much internal as external – we don’t want anyone to think of this as ‘now it’s TNS’ or ‘now it’s Radianz.’ It’s the combination, and those complementary strengths, that we want to be known for.”
Branding first, integration later
Lazenga is candid about where Waypoint sits on the spectrum between branding exercise and technology integration.
“This is very much a rebrand,” he says. “These are meant to be underlying platforms, and we do intend to keep them separate. Depending on your use case, different services are available to you. The concept is that the services clients have known for years are now available under one brand and one umbrella.”
For existing clients on either side of the acquisition, Lazenga says the immediate impact is minimal. “It’s business as usual. Contracts have been novated. There’s no change to how clients are supported, who they call, who they reach out to.”
Sentinel: a new name for a growing capability
Perhaps the most notable element of the Waypoint launch is Sentinel, a brand that does not appear in any prior TNS materials and represents the firm’s ambition to be a full-service managed market data operations provider.
Sentinel consolidates TNS’s Market Data-as-a-Service offering, the DUO (Data Usage Optimizer) cost management tool, and the capabilities acquired through the West Highland Support Services acquisition in late 2023, which brought application-level market data expertise into a business that had previously focused on network infrastructure and data delivery.“The special sauce is what happens when you combine West Highland’s market data management knowhow, enterprise data understanding, great architects and deep market data expertise with TNS’s infrastructure expertise,” says Lazenga. “We’re the only provider that can now offer a complete turnkey solution for market data operations.”
However, that turnkey proposition has deliberate boundaries. Sentinel includes entitlements management – TNS has its own homegrown entitlement system alongside integrations with major third-party providers – but does not extend to feed handling or data normalisation. Lazenga says this is by design.
“We don’t provide feed normalisation. We work with everybody – we’re neutral, we’re the ecosystem,” he explains. “We’re not here to tell you the best feed handler for your specific use case. We think of ourselves as more of a partner in determining how best to run market data for your business.”
Competitive positioning: partner and competitor
The managed trading infrastructure space has become increasingly competitive, with players including Pico, BSO, Avelacom and Options Technology all vying for institutional wallet share. Lazenga frames Waypoint’s position as distinct from all of them, though the boundaries are fluid.
He characterises BSO and Avelacom as primarily telco businesses with whom TNS has a “warm and collegiate relationship” as a consumer of their networking services. With Pico and Options Technology, the competitive overlap is more direct in the infrastructure space, though Lazenga says Waypoint ends up working alongside them in market data contexts.Resilience as table stakes
One notable omission from the Waypoint launch announcement is any reference to operational resilience or regulatory compliance – a surprising gap given that DORA is now in effect and resilience has become a board-level priority for European financial institutions.
Lazenga says the omission reflects his view that resilience is a baseline expectation rather than a differentiator. “I think of DORA as a continuation of trends that have been going on for a decade,” he says. “Where we’ve settled is that these are essentially table stakes – our expectation is that all of our products and services meet regulatory and compliance requirements. We’ve been very busy with DORA-related activities for European clients especially.”
He adds: “Security, operational resilience, DR planning, business continuity – these are all things we’ve been doing for more than 20 years. I don’t know that there’s necessarily anything specifically differentiating about it.”
The road ahead
TNS has been actively expanding its venue connectivity in recent months, adding market data access for 24X National Exchange, Japan’s JAX and six Latin American exchanges as trading continues to push toward 24/5 and potentially 24/7 operation. Lazenga says this trend does not fundamentally change the infrastructure demands on Waypoint, noting that the firm has been supporting global, round-the-clock trading for high-frequency firms for years.
Looking ahead, Lazenga signals continuity rather than transformation. AI-driven data demands and data centre workloads are creating what he describes as “unprecedented demand” for infrastructure services. But he rules out a move into trading software or platform development.
“What I don’t see is us buying a trading platform or stepping firmly into software,” he says. “We’re very much sticking to what we think we’re good at and what we know best – being that supporting hand for our clients.”
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