Asia Awards 2026: Best outsourcing provider—Northern Trust

Overview

Northern Trust’s Integrated Trading Solutions (ITS) provides fully outsourced, multi-asset trading across equities, fixed income, exchange-traded derivatives and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The service addresses and helps alleviate rising operational complexity, regulatory burden and cost pressures by delivering global execution expertise, deep liquidity access and integrated middle- and back-office support through a single platform.

The solution  

ITS assumes the cost and operational complexity of the full trade lifecycle and delivers it as a scalable, variable-cost service. Its straight-through processing architecture integrates front-, middle- and back-office workflows, crucially reducing manual intervention, lowering operational risk, and improving settlement efficiency. Asset managers benefit from streamlined operations, access to deep market expertise and liquidity, and trade anonymity, enabling faster scaling, market entry, and resilient execution across pretrade, execution, and post-trade activities.

Secret sauce  

ITS allows clients to outsource the entire trade lifecycle through a single, agency-only platform, spanning execution, settlement, commission management and transaction cost analysis. Integrated FX trade execution via Complete FX delivers a seamless and globally consistent experience for clients. With 24/6 coverage across four trading hubs and access to over 80 markets, ITS combines deep trader expertise, scalable liquidity and resilient infrastructure, allowing clients to compete on alpha rather than cost through transparent, integrated workflows.

Recent milestones

Clients have leveraged ITS to enter fixed-income markets quickly without having to build new capabilities or hire additional traders, accelerating their timetomarket and improving investment decisionmaking. In 2025, Northern Trust reported strong new business momentum across Asia-Pacific, with ITS highlighted as a key capability supporting asset owners bringing investment management in-house. This momentum reflects expanded equities, fixed income and derivatives execution coverage.

Future objectives

Northern Trust will continue to expand its multi-asset, outsourced trading capabilities in response to growing client demand, particularly in fixed income. The firm remains focused on strengthening its Asia-Pacific coverage, extending global trading hours and further expanding its multi-source liquidity network across asset classes.

Why they won

By winning the best outsourcing provider category in this year’s WatersTechnology Asia Awards, Northern Trust has yet again shown itself to be one of the go-to providers of outsourced services, which it delivers by way of its outstanding Integrated Trading Solutions service. The platform assumes the cost and operational complexity of the full trade lifecycle through its straight-through processing architecture, integrating front-, middle- and back-office workflows, and by so doing freeing up buy-side clients to focus on their core functions. It is no secret that outsourced trading has evolved in recent years from what was once a niche offering into something of a strategic imperative for asset managers looking to control their various costs, while simultaneously accessing reliable liquidity and navigating increasingly complex global markets. However, delivering seamless support across the entire trade lifecycle while maintaining execution quality and operational resilience is easier said than done. Northern Trust’s win in this category is down to its ITS platform, specifically designed to address these exact challenges. With 24/6 coverage across four global trading hubs and access to more than 80 markets, Northern Trust combines access to high-quality liquidity—a perennial challenge for even the largest and best resourced buy-side firms—and tried-and-tested infrastructure. Recent momentum across Asia-Pacific, particularly among asset owners bringing investment management functions in-house, underlines ITS’ versatility and its growing popularity across all markets.