AFTAs 2025: Best new technology introduced over the last 12 months (trading, risk and compliance)—IntelligentCross

Overview

IntelligentCross JumpStart is designed to allow the buy side to directly access specific brokers’ liquidity, while minimizing information leakage for both parties. JumpStart transforms buy-side liquidity sourcing and allows buy-side traders to choose and interact with their preferred liquidity, while simultaneously minimizing information leakage. Their orders interact in bespoke hosted pools in IntelligentCross that connect them to specific brokers’ liquidity, including scheduled or unique flows. Using JumpStart early in an order’s life cycle replaces the random hunt for natural flow, which causes market-wide footprints.
Minimized signaling, combined with directly targeted access, can lead to better execution and lower market impact for both sides of the trade. This innovation was created as a collaboration between IntelligentCross, Jefferies, Harris | Oakmark, and FactSet’s Portware buy-side EMS. Buy-side traders can access the IntelligentCross JumpStart UI via their EMS or OMS and send indications of interest (IOIs) to specific brokers’ liquidity within IntelligentCross ATS.

Premise  

Buy-side firms face a constant struggle when trying to find other buy-side liquidity in the marketplace and the hunt for natural flow can expose their intentions more broadly than they might like. Many block-oriented solutions put buy-side traders in the passive position of exposing their blotter for other counterparties to “ping.” JumpStart addresses these disadvantages by creating a different workflow where buy-side traders can be sponsored by their brokers to access purpose-built hosted pools in IntelligentCross ATS. Then they can use the JumpStart UI via their EMS or OMS to send IOIs to those pools and search for possible matches. Once a match is found, the institutional investor can confirm directly or set it to AutoEx via the UI. Not even their broker knows about their interest until the invitation to confirm arrives—all IOI information remains inside the ATS. They also receive transaction-cost analysis (TCA) support, which helps them assess their execution quality on an ongoing basis. This innovation delivers better control, access to unique liquidity and information protection to the buy side. The workflow also benefits the buy-side clients’ agency flow coming from broker-dealers, because those clients’ orders get to interact with other buy-side interest that they might otherwise not have encountered in the broader markets.

Differentiators  

The technology was developed by IntelligentCross, the number one US equity ATS by volume, according to Finra’s weekly ATS reports. IntelligentCross has focused JumpStart’s technology stack and its hosted pool expertise on solving this specific buy-side problem in an entirely new way.

Product roadmap

Each new broker will have the opportunity to optimize the liquidity they choose to send to their JumpStart hosted pools in their own way. This will allow brokers to differentiate their specific JumpStart experience for the buy side and provide institutional investors with more choice. More EMS and OMS platforms are also seeking to certify with IntelligentCross JumpStart so they can enhance their buy-side clients’ workflow solutions. As additional buy-side traders are empowered to put more potential interest into the marketplace with lower impact, there might well be greater opportunities for price discovery and market efficiency.

Why they won

This is the first ever win for Stamford, Conn.-based IntelligentCross in any of WatersTechnology’s awards programs in what has in recent years become one of the most keenly contested of all categories comprising the AFTAs. It is no secret that one of the most acute and enduring challenges facing even the largest and best resourced buy-side firms centers on identifying and accessing high-quality liquidity and then executing trades accurately and efficiently based on that liquidity. That might sound like a straightforward undertaking but speak to any front-office veteran across the buy side and you’re likely to hear just how challenging it is to achieve. IntelligentCross JumpStart wins this category because of how it addresses that challenge, while crucially doing so by eliminating information leakage. Instead of forcing traders to broadcast intentions across the Street, JumpStart provides targeted access to broker-sponsored hosted pools within its IntelligentCross ATS offering, which protects users’ information and supports safer discovery of genuine trading interest. This workflow provides institutional investors with confidence at the start of an order’s life and helps them reduce signaling and market impact.

IntelligentCross’s initiative also delivers value to user-firms by integrating directly with order and execution management systems, delivering a smooth, efficient user experience for buy-side traders, while the firm’s collaboration with brokers and asset managers positions it more as an industry solution as opposed to a single-firm innovation. As more participants adopt this model, the industry benefits from improved transparency and execution quality, broader liquidity access and healthier price discovery. The result: Everybody wins.