Waters Rankings 2018: All the Winners
For this year's Waters Rankings, our readers voted on 30 categories covering the front, middle and back offices.
End-users representing a large swath of the capital markets cast their votes over a six-week period to determine the outcome of the 30 categories making up this year’s Waters Rankings. Below is the list of this year’s category winners. Write-ups highlighting their accomplishments will be published in the August issue of Waters magazine.
Finally, the Rankings are voted on solely by our end-user readers. We would like to thank our readers for sharing their expertise in determining this year’s winners, as well as everyone who attended the event, which was held on July 12 at The Players in Manhattan.
Trading Services
Best Agency Broker — Weeden & Co. LP
Best Crossing Network Provider — OpenDoor Trading
Best Reconciliation Management Provider — Broadridge Financial Solutions
Best Algorithmic Trading Provider — Wolverine Execution Services
Trading Tools
Best Artificial Intelligence Technology Provider — Sentieo
Best Sell-Side Order Management System (OMS) Provider — Bloomberg
Best Buy-Side Order Management System (OMS) Provider — Charles River Development
Best Portfolio Management System Provider — RiskVal Financial Solutions
Best Execution Management System (EMS) Provider — London Stock Exchange
Best Performance Measurement and Attribution System Provider — StatPro
Best Transaction-cost Analysis (TCA) System Provider — Tradeweb Markets
Data Management
Best Enterprise Data Management (EDM) Systems Provider — S&P Global Market Intelligence
Best Reference Data Provider — Bloomberg
Best Corporate Actions Solution Provider — SmartStream
Best Low-latency Data Feed Provider — Thomson Reuters
Best Data Analytics Provider — S&P Global Market Intelligence
Compliance, Risk Management and the Back Office
Best Distributed-ledger Technology Provider — AlphaPoint
Best AML Compliance Solution Provider — NICE Actimize
Best Market Risk Solution Provider — Numerix
Best Credit Risk Solution Provider — Moody’s Analytics
Best Market Surveillance Provider — Nasdaq
Best Reporting System Provider — FactSet Research Systems
Best Accounting System Provider — SS&C Advent
Best Cyber-Security Provider — Eze Castle Integration
Infrastructure and Connectivity
Best Outsourcing Service Provider — Electra Information Systems
Best Trading Floor Communication System Provider — IPC Systems
Best Network Provider — BT
Best Mobile Solutions Provider — Thomson Reuters
Best Cloud-based Services Provider — Eagle Investment Systems
Best Cloud Infrastructure Provider — IPC Systems
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More on Awards & Rankings
Best private markets data provider—MSCI
MSCI’s Private Capital Transparency standardises manager‑reported and independent private‑asset data, linking private and public markets.
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.
