BST Awards 2023: Best integrated middle-office platform—Broadridge Financial Solutions

Overview

For the past two decades, the post-trade affirmation process was done either manually or through file-based integrations, which are delayed, error-prone and highly inefficient. While the majority of global trading is now done via the FIX protocol, the industry has yet to leverage this technology for the affirmation portion of the trade lifecycle. Nyfix Matching uses FIX across the post-trade space and designs intuitive screens for the buy side and sell side to use to manage various post-trade functions.

The solution  

Nyfix Matching provides the buy side with the ability to streamline post-trade workflows, which handles the matching and repair of block allocations by brokers with buy-side firms’ internal systems. Buy-side firms can therefore confirm and affirm trades on one consolidated platform. Nyfix Matching facilitates real-time allocations and streamlined post-trade processing, while mitigating end-of-day risk. Significantly, it is ready to support T+0 workflows. 

Secret sauce 

Nyfix Matching is designed to handle firms’ trade matching needs in one place. Its key differentiators are:

• Cost-savings: It is between 20% and 50% more cost effective than manual/legacy systems.
• Multi-asset class: It supports equities, fixed income, swaps, options, derivatives, and FX.
• Near-real time: FIX allows for faster processing and supports higher trading volumes.
• Fully hosted platform: The web-based GUI is available through the Nyfix Portal in one click, accessible anywhere.

Recent milestones

Nyfix Matching provides multi-asset class support and standard settlement instructions (SSIs). Matching is T+0 ready and is already helping clients meet the SEC’s upcoming T+1 deadline of May 28, 2024.

Nyfix Matching also features:

• Email notifications to brokers and the buy side when an action is required from them
• Significant number of Swift enhancements
• Margin reporting, step-out messages for brokers
• Place of settlement matching
• Global partnership with Linedata: Nyfix Matching is integrated directly with Linedata’s Longview OMS.

Future objectives 

• Fill matching for active hedge funds
• A number of GUI enhancements to support reporting module and tool enhancements
• Integration with BRx Match to allow for non-FIX-based messaging

Why they won

Broadridge wins the best integrated middle-office platform category in this year’s BST Awards thanks to its Nyfix Matching offering that arrived at the firm courtesy of its May 2021 acquisition of Itiviti. Nyfix Matching is a FIX-based, multi-asset class reconciliation platform, designed specifically to support buy-side firms with large trade volumes and/or high-touch orders. Two aspects of the platform that help differentiate it in an already crowded market are that it is fully hosted and accessible anywhere, and its ability to deliver significant cost savings compared with manually intensive or legacy/proprietary systems. Such functions are increasingly scrutinized by buy-side firms with a view to managing their fixed operating costs, while simultaneously improving operational throughput, robustness, and transparency. Nyfix Matching will appeal to large numbers of buy-side firms on those criteria alone.