Buy-Side Technology Awards 2015: Best Buy-Side TCA Tool—ITG

For the third year running, in addition to its success in this year’s Waters Rankings TCA category, New York-based Investment Technology Group (ITG) has triumphed in the best buy-side TCA tool category, thanks to its multi-asset TCA suite covering foreign exchange (FX), equities and futures securities.

The core of ITG’s TCA platform is its Peer Database, comprising aggregated, anonymous data from over 200 asset managers from various regions collected over the past six years. The database is designed to allow users to rank strategy and implementation performance against that of their peers, gaining insight into implementation and order prioritization, improving processes, and anticipating trading costs. Combining the functionality of the ITG Peer Database with ITG’s Smart Monitor, ITG’s transaction monitoring data-feed, means that users are able to view market volumes, quotes and performance in real time, moving TCA beyond analytics to a management platform.

ITG has also moved to meet an increasing client appetite for more in-depth analytics, building upon its market data foundation, which covers over 70 international markets, increasing its focus on execution analysis products. The firm has been particularly attentive to FX analytics over the past 12 months, making enhancements to its offering for both post-trade and pre-trade functionality, particularly with regulatory concerns around the Dodd–Frank Act in the US, and Mifid and the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) in Europe impacting how transparency and best execution mandates need to be adhered to. 

“We have always endeavored to be more consultative and to work with clients in understanding their investment process,” says Michael Sparkes, director for ITG Analytics, Europe. “ITG TCA is not an off-the-shelf or plug-and-play product—it requires fine-tuning and specification because every institution has its own investment process. On that basis, you really need to understand each process to be able to analyze it effectively.”

Sparkes also points to the experience of ITG’s London-based team as a factor driving much of the firm’s success. The team, he says, is one of the company’s “most valuable features” and ITG will continue to broaden its asset class coverage in the near future.

The core of ITG’s TCA platform is its Peer Database, comprising aggregated, anonymous data from over 200 asset managers from various regions collected over the past six years. The database is designed to allow users to rank strategy and implementation performance against that of their peers, gaining insight into implementation and order prioritization, improving processes, and anticipating trading costs.