Awards
About the WatersTechnology Awards
WatersTechnology runs seven awards programs annually, starting with the Women in Technology & Data Awards, held on or around International Women’s Day in March, and culminating with the American Financial Technology Awards, held in the first week of December. All awards are online only and are free to enter for all firms regardless of their location, although entrants should be aware that these awards focus on the data, technologies and services used by capital markets participants (investments banks, asset managers, hedge funds, exchanges, etc.) and not the retail sector. Firms may enter as many categories as they wish, on the condition that the technology or service they are entering is appropriate for the category they have selected.
Our Awards and Ranking
American Financial Technology Awards
Recognizing the leading data, technologies and third-party vendors serving both sides of the financial services industry
Held On:
Entries Open:
Entries Close:
Women in Technology & Data Awards
Recognizing outstanding women within the data and technology industries serving the capital markets
Held On:
Entries Open:
Entries Close:
WatersTechnology Asia Awards
Recognizing excellence in the development and deployment of technology and data services across Asia’s capital markets community
Held On:
Entries Open:
Entries Close:
Waters Rankings
The longest-running of all WatersTechnology’s awards where the category winners are determined exclusively by the brand’s readers
Entries Open:
Entries Close:
Inside Market Data & Inside Reference Data Awards
Recognizing outstanding market, reference, and alternative data and data-related technologies across the capital markets
Held On:
Entries Open:
Entries Close:
Sell-Side Technology Awards
Recognizing the leading data, technologies and third-party services catering to the global sell-side community
Held On:
Entries Open:
Entries Close:
Buy-Side Technology Awards
Recognizing the leading data, technologies and third-party services catering to the global buy-side community
Held On:
Entries Open:
Entries Close:
Awards winners
Most innovative market data project/initiative—firmfact
Firmfact automates market‑data contracts, invoices and entitlements for banks and asset managers. Its AI reads documents, matches invoices line‑by‑line and verifies licences with minimal keying.
Best market data newcomer (vendor or product)—Octaura
Octaura’s Insights Platform is an integrated market intelligence and analytics offering purpose-built for the leveraged loan market.
Best market data provider (broker)—Fenics Market Data & Analytics
FMD’s Broker Data service draws on BGC Group’s global brokerage operations to provide pricing, trade and order-flow information across FX, rates, fixed income, commodities and derivatives.
Best evaluated pricing service provider/vendor—Infront
Infront Quant supplies independent, cross‑asset valuations with a “white‑box approach”, offering level 1 and 2 transparency.
IMD & IRD Awards 2026 winner’s interview—Smartstream
Smartstream wins Best reference data managed service at the IMD & IRD Awards 2026
Best reference data integration vendor—Gresham
Gresham’s AI-native EDM Suite combines data from disparate sources and systems and provides user-firms with a single point of integration across the data life cycle.
Best ESG data initiative—Bloomberg
Bloomberg’s Impact and Allocation dataset provides investors with a consistent means of assessing how proceeds are being deployed and what outcomes issuers report.
Best AI/machine learning data initiative—FactSet
FactSet unveiled its MCP server in December 2025, allowing secure, authorized access to the firm’s data from third‑party AI tools.
Best corporate actions data initiative—S&P Global Market Intelligence
MCA Plus consolidates specialist datasets, validation and operational oversight across five domains, reducing fragmented workflows and manual processes.
Best alternative data initiative—S&P Global Market Intelligence
Designed specifically for financial use-cases, ProntoNLP processes large quantities of information, and makes it actionable.