GreySpark Partners
Feb 1, 2021

Itiviti, in conjunction with GreySpark Partners, engaged in a comprehensive assessment of how brokers use vendor-provided managed FIX connectivity components. Specifically, how these components can be enhanced by the use of business intelligence data analytics to equip front-office personnel with rich insights into the trading behavior of their clients.

When assessing front-office technology and deployment for client connectivity, Tier I to Tier III brokers are challenged to reduce the total spend on both in-house built solutions and on vendor-provided connectivity solutions. In working to rationalize the spend on vendor-provided connectivity solutions within the in-house built technology stack, brokers can either limit or reduce the outright number of vendor companies that they contract with, or they can work to reduce the spend with vendors whose solutions are essential and / or embedded within an otherwise monolithic architecture. Both options present an array of information technology and operations organizational challenges and often raise questions linked to the breadth and depth of the in-house platform, the cost of compliance and its future-state capabilities.

However, in the client connectivity space, specifically, a long-established ‘third way’ is available in the form of vendor-provided managed FIX services. This presents brokers with an attractive alternative to the traditional rigors of the buy versus build decision-making process. Managed FIX connectivity services, which consist of order routing networks (ORNs), client connectivity services (CCS) and FIX engines software, have steadily grown in popularity with brokers over the last five years. Brokers are enticed by managed FIX providers’ advanced technology and specialized resources with the added benefit of being able to reduce the broker’s total cost of ownership (TCO).

GreySpark Partners believes that vendor-provided managed FIX services are now evolving into robust connectivity ecosystems that provide brokers with rich insights into the trading behavior of their clients. As such, this white paper examines how the competitive landscape for managed FIX services has evolved to provide front-office personnel with insights into vast reserves of quantitative client behavioral data embedded within FIX message logs, thus optimizing the client / broker relationship through:

• the identification of new revenue streams;
• assessments of client profitability; and
• the reduction of connectivity costs. 

To support this thinking, this white paper evaluates the order routing networks, client connectivity services and FIX engines vendor competitive landscape across 18 offerings competing for user market share in 2019.