Firms look to decommission legacy tech and embrace a range of cloud-based tools

Survey of capital markets firms reveals a demand for cloud-native analytics, as well as an increased adoption of artificial intelligence technology from across the industry. However, challenges around cost and complexity persist when it comes to cloud migration. 

The financial services industry is undergoing appreciable operational and technological change, driven by demand for high-quality data and the well-documented benefits offered on the back of cloud-based services. This whitepaper, based on a 12-question survey of 31 capital markets professionals from a range of firms across the North American, European Union and UK financial services industries, reveals that both real-time and historical tick data are crucial to the majority of respondents, supporting their day-to-day operations and long-term analysis. Unsurprisingly, firms continue to look for ways to wean themselves off legacy systems and technologies, instead opting for RESTful APIs, cloud-native formats like Apache Parquet, and analytics tools such as Python and Snowflake. Python is now the dominant programming language, followed by SQL and Java.

Key findings include:

•  42% of respondents work in the traditional asset management industry, while 26% work at hedge funds or funds of funds
•  Real-time data is the most popular data type, selected by 29% of respondents, followed by delayed intraday data, short-term historic data and medium-term historic data, all selected by 22% of respondents 
•  Python bespoke was the most popular data analytics platform, used by 41% of respondents, followed by Snowflake (36%)
•  Cost was the greatest barrier to cloud migration, cited by 28% of respondents, followed by the complexity of moving business processes to the cloud, selected by 26% of respondents 
•  Respondents see scalability and elasticity, as well as greater availability and choice of datasets as the two most significant benefits of cloud migration 

While respondents recognize the benefits of scalability, flexibility and broader data access on the back of adopting cloud-based services, they remain cautious due to cost and implementation complexity. Regardless, cloud adoption is reshaping analytics by lowering operational demands. The survey also highlights AI’s growing role across the industry, with firms focusing on improving data quality as a means of enhancing AI-driven insights. 

Discover how firms are moving away from legacy technologies and embracing cloud-based tools with the view to improving their all-round operational efficiency and accuracy.

Download the OneTick survey report:  Capital markets firms outline tech, data and ops priorities

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