Waters Rankings 2015: Best EMS Provider ─ REDI Global Technologies

REDI, which has over 150 brokers on its network, bested a field of nearly 20 to take home its first Waters Rankings gong.

REDIPlus, the company's trade-management platform, allows users to execute a range of securities from simple single-stock trades to complex strategies across markets around the globe, while managing risk throughout the trade lifecycle.

REDI's CEO, Rishi Nangalia, says that most of the firm's research and development investment has to do with "work that's under the covers." This includes new data centers with the latest hardware, rebuilt networking and connectivity infrastructures, and refactoring the deployment of the entire technology stack.

"Tactically, we've been adding pieces of functionality based on client demand and we continue to build out our multi-broker capabilities ─ we added about a dozen new brokers to the network during the past few months and extended support for some of our existing brokers to new asset classes like options on futures. From a strategic standpoint, we are nearing the end of a complete re-write of our software core, which will ultimately enable the next-generation of our platform."

Nangalia says that the first big deployment on this re-write is a new development on its Spread Trader product, built on top of REDI's new core and leverages a thin-client architecture with a front-end written using HTML5.

"We have been a strong advocate of collaborating with cutting-edge fintech startups, and are utilizing deployment technology from one of our partners to deliver Spread Trader using a seamless blend of web and desktop technology so that it will look and behave like any other native REDIPlus window," he says.

Whether because of regulatory constraints, margin pressure, investor demand, or increased competition, Nangalia says that firms are going to continue to focus on their core competencies while leveraging third parties to take on the rest "in scalable but bespoke ways."

"We're only at the tip of the iceberg with regards to the way firms in our industry can leverage technologies like HTML5 and infrastructure-as-a-service," he adds. "We view both as game-changers, and have developed our strategic roadmap accordingly."