A bigger deal in platforms

After three years of consolidation in electronic trading, are brokers getting what they want from the players who are left and do the providers themselves know where they are going?

For the fixed-income trading platform industry, the past three years have been a nasty hangover from the internet boom. Scores of offerings have dropped out of the scene, but as the Bond Market Association (BMA) notes in its most recent report, consolidation has resulted in a core of considerably stronger platforms.

Sang Lee, manager and analyst in the securities and investments group at technology consultancy Celent, believes the carnage is largely over. “Consolidation has stopped,” he says.