Buy-side Firms Reject EMS Brokerage Charges
Some users favor a licence fee over per-trade charging—and have forced vendors to make the switch.

Leading buy-side firms are calling time on the brokerage charging models used by some liquidity aggregators, joining dealers in a growing protest.
In at least two cases, buy-side users of an aggregator have been able to push the vendor into applying an annual license fee instead of per-trade charges.
“There has always been a lot of contention around the way in which EMS and platform fees are charged,” says Ken Monahan, senior analyst on the market structure and technology team at Greenwich
More on Trading Tech
Google gifts Linux, capital raised for Canton, one less CTP bid, and more
The Waters Cooler: Banks team up for open-source AI controls, S&P injects GenAI into Capital IQ, and Goldman Sachs employees get their own AI assistant in this week’s news roundup.
Waters Wavelength Ep. 323: MarketAxess’s Chowdhury and Burke (plus some Cusip updates)
This week, Riad Chowdhury, head of Asia-Pacific, and Dan Burke, global head of emerging markets at MarketAxess, join to discuss block trading in fixed income. Plus Reb discusses her recent article about Cusip and updates on the class action lawsuit moving through the courts.
As datacenter cooling issues rise, FPGAs could help
IMD Wrap: As temperatures are spiking, so too is demand for capacity related to AI applications. Max says FPGAs could help to ease the burden being forced on datacenters.
WatersTechnology latest edition
Check out our latest edition, plus more than 13 years of our best content.
Deutsche Bank casts a cautious eye towards agentic AI
“An AI worker is something that is really buildable,” says innovation and AI head
LLMs are making alternative datasets ‘fuzzy’
Waters Wrap: While large language models and generative/agentic AI offer an endless amount of opportunity, they are also exposing unforeseen risks and challenges.
Trading venues seen as easiest targets for Esma supervision
Platforms do not pose systemic risks for member states and are already subject to consistent rules.
Agentic AI takes center stage, bank tech projects, new funding rounds and more
The Waters Cooler: SEC hack investigation, FCA–Nvidia partnership, LTX BondGPT upgrade, and CDO problems are also in this week’s news round-up.