The ability to quickly and efficiently execute at best price in Asia’s fixed-income markets was more important than ever in 2021, when a meltdown across the region’s highyield issuers prompted an evaporation of liquidity.

MarketAxess, which has won Best Trading and Execution Platform at Asian Private Banker’s Technology Awards for the second year running, demonstrated it was more than up to this task.

The vendor’s order and execution workflow solution Axess IQ — which was rolled out to Asian clients in 2021 — helped private banks in the region to better manage high-order volumes during the market tumult. Among the features that proved valuable to private bank’s bond trading desks during the year were the ability to monitor queues of open orders and to automatically process and prioritise certain orders, as well as aggregating liquidity and market data into a single view.

In view of the growing global interest in the region’s debt markets, MarketAxess equally bolstered its local currency offerings. In September 2021, the vendor added trading via China’s Bond Connect and CIBM Direct to its platform, allowing private banking and wealth management clients to trade Chinese credit and rates with onshore market makers.

Figures shared with the judging panel during the review process demonstrated how the business of MarketAxess with private banking clients kept going from strength to strength during the 2021 calendar year. The volume of trades executed via the platform by regional private bank clients grew by double digits, easily outstripping the equivalent number for the global business.

That is why MarketAxess is Asian Private Banker’s 2021 winner of the Technology Award for Best Trading and Execution Platform.

MarketAxess operates a leading, institutional electronic trading platform delivering expanded liquidity opportunities, improved execution quality and significant cost savings across global fixed-income markets. A record $6.6 trillion was traded across credit and rate products through MarketAxess trading technology in 2020.We serve a global network of over 1,800 firms, including the world’s leading asset managers, hedge funds and institutional brokers dealers.

MarketAxess’ award-winning Open Trading® marketplace is regarded as the preferred all-to-all trading solution in the global credit markets, creating a unique liquidity pool for a broad range of credit market participants. In addition, drawing on our unique fixed income data and analytical resources, MarketAxess provides automated trading solutions, market data products and a range of pre- and post-trade services. Together, these solutions allow our clients to open up new trading possibilities, refine their trading strategies and improve the efficiency of their execution.

Who are you?
A global technology and service provider, we offer the most innovative, consistent and reliable connectivity and trading solutions available.Top-tier banks, brokers, trading firms and institutional investors rely on Itiviti’s solutions to service their clients, connect to markets, trade smarter in all asset classes by consolidating trading platforms and leverage automation to move faster.

With presence in all major financial centers and serving more than 1,600 clients in over 50 countries, Itiviti delivers on a global scale.

Describe your solution (I.e. that which is applicable to your award)
Itiviti’s market-leading multi-asset connectivity and trading platform offers unrivaled capabilities for the APAC Private Banking and Wealth Management industry.

Automated order flow managing increasing volumes

• Automated order processing. All orders are submitted utilizing pre-defined order rules.
• High-touch workflow for care orders as needed.
• Stay proactive using pre-trade risk checks to manage exceptions, minimize rejected orders and focus on normalization and recycling.
• Full RFQ support to request and respond to quotes.
• Adapt to market conditions, by automatically queuing orders outside of trading hours allowing clients to trade on exchanges worldwide.
• Connect to any Portfolio Management System in order to process orders entered by relationship managers.
• Itiviti’s multi-asset connectivity provides access to all major trading and execution venues worldwide through more than 800 pre-certified brokers as well as liquidity platforms.

Advanced compliance offering

• Exporting data to compliance, regulatory and best execution platforms.
• Cleaning and enriching data when required.
• Collecting aggregated orders and trade reports from any system.

What makes it stand out/apart from other similar solutions in the marketplace?
Itiviti’s trading and execution platform, combines automated high-volume order execution with a rich toolset for order monitoring, order management, flexible exception management, smart alerts, and pre-trade risk.

Global adoption with rapid growth in APAC – Itiviti’s trading and execution platform is used globally by Tier 1 and Tier 2 banks.

Experienced product and sales management teams in APAC. Itiviti invests in people with solid, hands-on experience from tier 1 firms to strengthen the global and regional product offering, sales and support services.

Itiviti global operations

• Proven global track record, with 30+ years of experience in trading and connectivity technology.
• Global support organization, operating in Asia, Europe, and the US, allowing clients to trade on connected exchanges 24/6.
• Local presence in key financial centers around the globe, with Asia Pacific offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Manila, and Mumbai.
• An R&D team of 400+ professionals worldwide, dedicated to innovation.

Explain how it adds value to the business of PBS/WMs

A growing number of Asian private bankers and wealth managers rely on Itiviti’s next-generation platform to handle complex order aggregation while automating high volume order flows taking advantage of Itiviti’s advanced compliance and reporting capabilities for best execution.

Itiviti’s innovative solutions address significant market and regulatory challenges while offering a powerful, flexible platform for advanced trading technology adoption.

Designed for automation and built on a modular architecture, Itiviti’s platform is highly customizable to address a broad range of use cases for trading on the Asian and global markets. It is available through managed infrastructure that offers resilience, performance, and scalability.

Contact details
For more information about Itiviti´s solution offering, please visit www.itiviti.com or email us at sales-asia@itiviti.com. for more information.

As market and regulatory complexities grow, so too do the demands of private banks in Asia, which constantly demand more of their trading and execution platforms by seeking systems that can facilitate end-to-end processes and flexibly adapt to new changes and client-specific needs.

In this environment, Numerix Oneview proved to be the platform of choice in 2018 on account of being an intuitive front-to-back system that is able to automate price discovery, RFQs, order execution, and lifecycle management for OTC derivatives and structured products. As an adaptable and future-proof solution, Oneview effectively relieves the mounting pressures that the region’s private banks face due to increased structured product demand from end-clients, higher expectations for front office productivity, and constant regulatory change.

One key differentiator for the platform is its flexible centralised data model and orchestration engine, which ensures scalability and integrability. Proof of Oneview’s effectiveness was demonstrated through its partnership with an Asian private bank last year. Oneview bolted on seamlessly to the bank’s existing systems while offering a user-friendly interface that eliminated the need for double entry. Moreover, via built-in FIX connectivity, it was able to support legacy communication protocols without compromising best practices.

Oneview also adopted a microservice-based architecture in 2018, enabling it to rapidly and securely develop new capabilities for private banks without jeopardising the integrity of the overall platform. Under this new framework, Numerix smoothly added a pre-trade suitability check function for a major private bank in Singapore, helping it reduce compliance time and increase scalability.

Ultimately, Numerix Oneview has proven itself an exceptional trading and execution platform by virtue of the way it simplifies derivatives and structured products trading for the region’s wealth managers.

Numerix Oneview is Asian Private Banker’s Best Trading and Execution Platform for 2018.