Sell-Side Technology Awards 2025: Best sell-side front-office platform (vendor)—Bloomberg

Overview

Bloomberg’s suite of sell-side solutions comprises pre-trade analytics, a real-time execution management system (EMS), a trade order management system (TOMS), and front-office risk solutions (MARS), all integrated with the Bloomberg Terminal, market data, and a range of trading venues. Bloomberg supports clients by helping them to scale their trading operations across multiple asset classes, connecting sell-side professionals to global markets while optimizing all stages of the front- to middle-office trading lifecycle.

The solution  

Sell-side professionals need low-latency execution, data-driven analytics, access to real-time trading and risk data, and reliable compliance reporting. Bloomberg’s integrated solutions and market data allow for immediate and consistent representation of trading impact on firms’ positions, their profit and loss (P&L), risk profile, and reporting. With support for fixed income, derivatives, FX, and equities, Bloomberg’s solutions are designed to help banks make better, more informed decisions faster, reduce risks, and improve executions for their clients.

Secret sauce  

Bloomberg’s sell-side solutions provide users with plug-and-play components that interoperate with other Bloomberg applications and data across the entire trading workflow. The firm’s expanded EMS offering provides users with a customizable trading platform that allows them to micro-tailor workflows, user interfaces, and reporting features to meet specific trading strategies and business requirements. It also provides them with low-latency trading capabilities, algorithmic execution tools, customized compliance workflows, effectively future-proofing their front-office operations.

Recent milestones

• Bloomberg Sell-Side EMS now offers low-latency, co-located execution management solutions optimized for rates trading, following the acquisition of Broadway Technology. This integration enables clients to benefit from multi-asset solutions in an increasingly electronic fixed-income market.
• Improved trade reporting performance
• Enhanced front-office risk functionality covering structured products and multi-regional snapshots for pricing transparency and data consistency
• Bank treasury workflows enhanced to include FX arbitrage trading and new P&L methodologies

Future objectives

Bloomberg’s objectives across its sell-side portfolio include:

• Enhancing its low-latency EMS offering for fixed income and derivatives
• Offering clients APIs across all front-office workflows for enhanced integration flexibility
• Continued improvement of trade throughput performance to meet future demand
• Offering traders, treasurers, and risk managers front-office risk tools

Why they won

Bloomberg maintains its phenomenal run of form in these and WatersTechnology’s other awards by walking away with the coveted sell-side front-office platform (vendor) category, thanks to its suite a tried-and-tested, sell-side-focused front-office applications that are widely used by sell-side firms of all sizes across the industry. 

Not only does the New York data and tech giant boast the industry’s most ubiquitous information portal in its Bloomberg Terminal, but to that it adds pre-trade analytics, an outstanding OMS and EMS joint offering, a sophisticated risk management platform in MARS, and an extensive catalog of high-quality data. We hear a lot of firms claim to offer an all-singing, all-dancing front-office platform, but none can hold a candle to Bloomberg, and it is for this reason alone that the firm has emerged on top yet again in this highly sought-after category.