WFE Signals Extended Trading Hours Feasible, but Warns Settlement Systems Must Catch Up
The World Federation of Exchanges (WFE) has published new research concluding that extended trading hours, including near round-the-clock markets, are technologically feasible, but their long-term sustainability depends on coordinated reform across clearing, settlement and payment infrastructure. In Extending Exchange Trading Hours, the WFE examines proposals from major U.S. exchanges to expand equity trading toward 22-...
Beyond the Pilot: Building Infrastructure for the Agentic Era
By David Sewell, Chief Technology Officer, Synechron. The fraud transaction takes milliseconds to clear. In that window, an agentic system has already queried three databases, cross-referenced two watchlists, and pinged the identity verification layer. It works – in the demo. Then the auditor asks where the decision log is, and nobody can find it, because...
NeoXam Sets Sights on Narrowing Private Data Gap Between GPs and LPs
As demand for private markets data accelerates, asset allocators are finding themselves having to play digital catch up with their investor counterparts. General partners (GPs), who manage private funds and allocate capital invested by limited partners (LPs) have found themselves technologically behind the curve as institutional investors plough into the once-niche markets. But because LPs are...
Optimal Launches Options Execution Platform Built on Competitive Allocation Model
Optimal Market Technologies the US-registered broker-dealer focused on options execution, has launched a new US listed options execution platform backed by several leading global market makers, introducing a model designed to allocate order flow based on measured execution performance rather than fixed or single-counterparty arrangements. The platform combines an options Alternative Trading System (ATS) with...
Democratising Surveillance: Why Culture Is the Real Compliance Challenge
Institutional culture has always been the defining constraint for effective compliance across capital markets and treasury. Boards may approve ever-larger budgets for surveillance technology and artificial intelligence, and regulators may intensify scrutiny of governance, risk, and compliance frameworks, yet the hardest variable to control remains behavioural norms and internal incentives. For many organisations, the question...
Tradeweb and Kalshi Announce Strategic Partnership to Expand Institutional Access to Prediction Markets
Tradeweb, the global operator of electronic marketplaces for rates, credit, equities, and money markets, and Kalshi, the world’s largest prediction market, have formed a strategic partnership to expand institutional access to Kalshi’s prediction market data. The collaboration also includes plans to support institutional-grade event contract trading via Tradeweb’s platform. The announcement brings a regulated prediction...
LMAX Group Launches Omnia Exchange as Cross-Asset Liquidity Orchestration Layer
LMAX Group has launched Omnia Exchange, a new infrastructure layer designed to enable institutions to exchange any asset against any other in real time through a single API, unifying FX, crypto, stablecoins and other digital assets within a single execution environment. Built on LMAX Group’s existing exchange technology and liquidity infrastructure, the platform combines blockchain-based...
BCG Expand: Market Data Industry Tops $50bn as Growth Normalises and Cost Discipline Tightens
Global market data industry revenues surpassed $50bn for the first time in 2025, reaching $50.5bn, according to BCG Expand’s latest Market Data Market Sizing report. Total revenues grew 6.4% in 2025, down from 6.6% in 2024 and 8.3% in 2023, signalling a moderation after several years of stronger expansion. The slowdown, however, does not point...
BMLL and Features Analytics Target Surveillance Benchmarking with Level 3 Order Book Data
BMLL and Features Analytics have partnered to develop new trade surveillance benchmarking and market integrity analytics built on reconstructed historical order book data, signalling a shift towards more measurable, performance-driven surveillance frameworks. Under the agreement, Features Analytics will build and commercialise surveillance benchmarking products on top of BMLL’s harmonised historical Level 3, 2 and 1...
Financial Crime is a Decision-Speed Problem: Rethinking AI in AML and Compliance Controls
Financial crime compliance is often described as a resourcing challenge. Firms speak of analyst backlogs, alert volumes and the rising cost of surveillance and screening. Kieran Holland, Solutions Engineering Team Leader at Innovative Systems’ FinScan, argues that the underlying constraint has shifted. Financial crime has become a decision-speed problem. “The fight against financial crime is...