Sell-Side Technology Awards 2017: Best Data Provider to the Sell Side—Thomson Reuters

Speaking of stability, Thomson Reuters ensured a fourth consecutive win at this year’s Sell-Side Technology Awards as the best data provider, because its platform can do just that: process massive amounts of data without it impinging on its performance capabilities.

Marion Leslie, managing director of enterprise proposition at Thomson Reuters, says part of Elektron’s success is that it has not only been able to sustain and manage huge volumes but it has also been able to manage the structural changes that regulations introduce to the market. “This gives users the confidence that no matter what the external environment throws at them, we will keep running and help them to face these changes,” she says. 

Elektron offers a variety of services, including the delivery of low-latency feeds from exchange-traded and over-the-counter (OTC) markets, along with analytics, a market data platform, and transactional connectivity to support any financial workflow application. In addition, the Elektron Feeds service provides normalized, full-tick, depth-of-market data from exchanges around the world in a format that can be easily integrated into users’ proprietary and third-party applications.

Thomson Reuters has been quick to adopt an open application programming interface (API) approach to its platform, where clients and developers can tweak it according to their individual needs, by creating their own applications. The firm provides a set of open-source APIs that simplify access to its datafeeds and services, consisting of a broad set of interfaces ranging from low latency/high performance to simple content aware and web APIs.

Thomson Reuters’ biggest bet, however, is the upcoming Mifid II regime, and that’s where Elektron will focus until the beginning of 2018. “We are not expecting people to implement new things—we are going to enhance the existing infrastructures,” Leslie says. “Our data feeds will reflect the new Mifid II requirements, our trading platforms will be compliant, and the data we provide will make it as easy as possible for the clients to be compliant as well,” she says. 

The firm will also create new analytics solutions during the course of this year for its clients’ reporting obligations. For Thomson Reuters, this is vital in its efforts to make sure that the core market data infrastructure stays relevant in the new regulatory landscape.