Generative artificial intelligence (gen A.I.) has made a big splash in the securities industry and many firms and providers are exploring how to apply this game-changing technology to data, analytics, accounting, databases, cloud services, modeling, and operations for wealth and asset management, investment banking, and securities transactions. Industry participants are also applying gen A.I. to unstructured data, client engagements, corporate actions, and manual tasks and systems. The winner in this category must demonstrate how its gen A.I. solution greatly improved a key operation for financial institutions or led to a breakthrough.
Optimizing collateral management has come into sharp focus for many buy-side firms especially as they have had to revamp their infrastructures to meet new regulatory regimes. Advances via distributed ledger technology (DLT) and artificial intelligence (A.I.) are easing workflows and compliance burdens. This award honors the provider, consultant, or internal IT organization that has been the most effective in helping buy-side operations staff achieve higher levels of internal efficiency in the oversight of collateral.
This award recognizes the provider that offers buy-side firms a comprehensive set of solutions for securities operations that helps firms achieve operational excellence. The solution set can be deployed onsite, use cloud computing technology, be completely outsourced, or use a combination of these deployment methods. The award is meant to reward the provider whose ambitious, enterprise-wide offerings have exceeded expectations.
This award honors the provider that has advanced the complex process of client reporting. The winner will demonstrate that it has improved the customization, look, and feel, and delivery of reports for many kinds of clients and portfolios. The award also recognizes progress in automating reports, managing source data, monitoring the status of productions, and clarity in performance reporting.
For 2023, this award category focuses on the next chapter in cloud computing – cloud-native advances that are paving the way for digital transformations and other evolutionary strategies. This category is open to managed service and cloud-native solutions providers, and to companies that offer infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS); platform-as-as-service (PaaS); and software-as-a-service (SaaS) implementations.
Corporate actions processing continues to advance and this award spotlights the provider that has incorporated industry standards, advanced automation, data management, ESG data, and emerging technologies. The winner in this category will have helped its clients move closer to automation and streamlined processing.
This award recognizes the industry participant that has successfully developed innovative financial technology solutions for middle- and back-office post-trade operations. Eligible areas of consideration include advanced cloud-native services, hybrids of legacy and cutting-edge IT, a groundbreaking offering that eliminates manual processes, and new Ops-focused products that break the mold.
The winning solution must enable firms to proactively identify, mitigate, prevent and recover from cybersecurity incidents while maintaining operational continuity and regulatory compliance. Eligible solutions should showcase advanced capabilities in threat detection, incident response, data protection, and system recovery, tailored specifically to the unique challenges of the capital markets environment. This category recognizes providers that set a new standard in resilience, empowering firms to operate securely in an ever-evolving threat landscape.
This award spotlights the most effective and innovative solution for seamless data integration. The winning solution must enable firms to aggregate, harmonize, and manage data from diverse sources, ensuring accuracy, consistency, and accessibility across systems and workflows. Nominees should demonstrate excellence in facilitating interoperability, reducing data silos, and enhancing decision-making through advanced integration capabilities such as application programming interfaces (APIs), cloud-based technologies, and real-time synchronization. This category celebrates solutions that empower firms to unlock the full potential of their data and drive operational efficiency.
Managing data to get the most out of it for securities operations is an ongoing challenge for all financial services firms. Data that is optimized will yield multiple benefits for securities operations and beyond. This honor is for the provider that has demonstrated that it can help firms derive the most value from their clean data and pave the way for greater advancements to come.
The winner in this category offers clients the most comprehensive global coverage in a timely manner and via a user-friendly, consolidated view. The top provider in this category has a complete offering that lowers operational risks for clients.
This award recognizes the leading solution that excels in streamlining and optimizing derivatives processing. Nominees must demonstrate superior capabilities in managing the full lifecycle of derivatives, including trade capture, clearing, settlement, collateral management, and regulatory compliance. Nominees should emphasize their achievements in innovation that enhance efficiency, accuracy, and scalability, while addressing the complexities of listed, over-the-counter (OTC), and non-cleared derivatives. This category celebrates solutions that empower market participants to navigate the evolving derivatives landscape with operational excellence.
This award salutes the most innovative and effective solution for managing the processing lifecycle of digital assets including settlement, custody, reconciliation, and compliance. Nominees must demonstrate capabilities in facilitating the seamless handling of cryptocurrencies, tokenized securities, and other blockchain-based assets. Nominees should also showcase advancements in scalability, security, interoperability, and integration with traditional financial systems. This category celebrates solutions that enable market participants to embrace digital assets confidently and efficiently, driving adoption and operational excellence in this emerging sector.
This award pays tribute to the most effective and innovative solution designed to detect, prevent, and mitigate fraud. The winning solution must demonstrate advanced capabilities in real-time monitoring, anomaly detection, and risk assessment, leveraging technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and advanced analytics to stay ahead of evolving fraud tactics. Nominees should showcase their ability to protect firms and clients from financial and reputational harm while ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements. This category celebrates solutions that set new benchmarks for safeguarding the integrity of their clients’ operations.
The voters will be rewarding the solution provider that has achieved a new level of excellence via innovation for transaction clearing and settlement operations, including assistance with the move to shorter, T+1 settlement. The competition is open to established consultancies and providers, and newcomers. The winning provider must facilitate groundbreaking solutions for incumbent and cutting-edge financial instruments, especially via disruptive and emerging technologies, workflows, and collaborative efforts.
The middle office plays an important role in optimizing operations across the enterprise. The winner in this category will be chosen from among the ranks of middle-office operations providers that offer IT resource management services, risk management, risk data analytics, client and security master database support, and services for the coding, configuration, and verification of trades.
The middle and back-offices are no longer autonomous groups existing independently of each other. They are linked by multiple operations serving multiple assets. This award will spotlight the Ops offering that helps firm facilitate more efficient integration between middle- and back-office applications, particularly IT innovations that eliminate manual systems, legacy solutions and pave the way for operational efficiency.
This category is open to any provider — whether an up-and-coming or an established provider — that has introduced a disruptive solution in 2024. Eligible nominations include brand-new offerings, major breakthroughs, significant overhauls, or advances to existing products that deliver unprecedented advantages to clients. Qualifying innovations include enhanced integration via new APIs, improved system performance, inventive open source projects, or other transformative efforts that advance securities operations. This award celebrates trailblazers driving meaningful change and setting new industry benchmarks.
Operational risk permeates everything that a financial services firm does, including securities trading and all the steps needed to complete a transaction. This award will go to the provider that has shown the most creativity in mitigating operational risk whether it is related to onboarding and KYC challenges, reputational concerns, margining and collateral management woes, data mismanagement, disaster recovery/business continuity, corporate governance, and other issues that may hamper operations.
Outsourcing plays a key role for many facets of securities operations. This category honors the provider that offers valuable, reliable, cost-effective and efficient outsourced services to the buy side. The winner in this category will be honored for offering the highest levels of reliability, security and adaptability, and for demonstrating capabilities for rapid implementations and flexible consumer models.
Nominees in this category must demonstrate how their solution effectively enables clients to evaluate and optimize their investment strategies, operational efficiencies, and client outcomes through advanced analytics, real-time insights, and comprehensive reporting capabilities. Nominees should demonstrate excellence in leveraging data visualization, predictive analytics, and benchmarking tools to deliver actionable insights that drive decision-making and enhance portfolio performance. This category honors solutions that set new standards for transparency, precision, and strategic value in performance analysis.
This category spotlights the performance measurement solution provider that offers systems for exemplary calculation of returns for portfolios (benchmarks and composites); calculation of attribution effects for equity and fixed-income portfolios; and calculation of ex-post risk, absolute and relative. This award also acknowledges the efforts that industry participants are making to advance performance measurement via the embrace of ESG concerns among investors and emerging disruptive technologies.
This award honors the provider that offered cost-effective, customized support for their clients in 2023. Nominees in this category should have supplied exemplary business management plans that facilitated seamless, efficient transitions to both remote and/or onsite professional services support. The category is open to IT systems, services, and software providers, and to third-party companies that specialize in offering professional services.
Reconciliation for securities operations has been the focus of a lot of energy over the past five years. The result is a wider range of opportunities available for firms looking for effective solutions. This category is an opportunity for the industry to reward the solution provider offering an innovative approach that yields great results and support, and helps firms reallocate resources to their advantage.
This award recognizes the most impactful and innovative solutions that excel in meeting critical financial governance, risk management, and compliance needs and supports regulatory technology (RegTech) initiatives. Eligible offerings must showcase their ability to streamline compliance, enhance regulatory reporting, and address evolving requirements, such as anti-money laundering (AML), economic sanctions, and global financial regulations. Nominees should present how their technology supports firms across equities, fixed income, and derivatives markets, enabling participants to meet regulatory demands efficiently while driving operational excellence. In addition, solutions that help firms focus on relevant aspects of regulatory, legal, data, social, and IT management excellence are also eligible. This category affirms RegTech providers that deliver cutting-edge solutions to help firms navigate the complexities of today’s regulatory landscape.
Keeping up with regulatory reporting requirements is an ongoing burden for financial services firms that is only going to become more challenging. Automating processes across an enterprise is daunting for firms, and the industry is exploring a variety of models to support regulatory technology (RegTech). The surge in ESG-based investing has also created a new area of concern for firms that need to prove to investors they are not engaged in greenwashing. This award honors the solutions provider that has made a commitment to advancing data integrity and data governance, ending repetitive processes, and streamlining reporting across the enterprise and to regulators.
The collateral management complex involves many participants including sell-side firms that must work closely in conjunction with counterparties. This award recognizes the accomplishments of a provider, consultancy, industry organization, or internal IT group that has made great strides in helping sell-side operations maximize their collateral management operations via advances to the workflow, IT systems, and counterparty interactions.
This award celebrates an individual who has made a transformative impact on a critical financial technology issue that will help evolve the industry. The honoree will be a leader who has championed innovation, spearheaded key technology initiatives, driven best practices, and/or delivered industry breakthroughs. This visionary demonstrates exceptional skills for collaboration among business executives, IT managers, and operational teams. The winner in this category inspires others to push for progress across the financial technology ecosystem and meaningful change.
This award recognizes a senior executive who has driven impactful financial technology innovation from an operational perspective. The honoree may come from a solutions provider, an end-user firm, or a consultancy dedicated to advancing securities operations across the financial services industry. The winner will exemplify a collaborative approach, effectively orchestrating the efforts of business executives, IT managers, and operations teams to deliver significant improvements. This award spotlights a visionary executive whose leadership and commitment have propelled transformations the financial technology landscape.
The Service Provider of the Year will be celebrated for advancing the delivery of service, extraordinary client support, new synergies with key market participants and extraordinary leadership in the industry. The winner in this category must be able to show that it boosted the fortunes of its clients.
This award will recognize the software application or software system that over the past year has broken new ground in a major area of securities operations. This category is open to technology providers, industry organizations and financial services firms that are fully engaged in the advancement of operations software. The winning solution must have clear business benefits.
This award celebrates an individual or an organization within the securities operations community that not only advanced innovative solutions but also demonstrated meaningful progress in promoting the welfare of others. The winner in this category has had a profound impact upon the greater good.
Join FTF as we celebrate and recognize the professionals, financial technology vendors, service providers, industry bodies, and regulators who have made significant strides and noteworthy achievements in operational excellence over the 2024 calendar year.
Watch the video below to view highlights from the 2025 Awards celebration!
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