OpenFin is an open, neutral, collaborative platform, providing a centralised desktop component to deliver valuable information and useful functionality such as alerts, search functions and a notification centre. Interoperability enables us to take important data for traders and connect it seamlessly, reducing switching between apps and thus significantly reducing friction. By removing bilateral integrations, we are creating a standardised approach to how traders exchange information on the desktop.

Being able to receive rich information from Turquoise, while simultaneously reducing development costs, it is a win across the board for the industry.

Dr Robert Barnes – what are the market observations that make this innovation relevant now?

We are very happy that Turquoise Plato® has become the destination for fully-automated midpoint and electronic block trading, particularly at large values – a trend which has become mainstream. In fact, the size of trades continues to grow. We are also beginning to see large trades in individual country stocks.

For example, we recently had our number one trades in each of a Swiss and a Danish stock. Activity is at record highs while there is plenty of capacity to provide consistent high-quality execution. Individual block indications can be more than £100 million/€100 million, such that we have raised the order entry limit to £200mln / €200mln.

Plus, we are also beginning to see that with the market adopting electronic block trading, high-quality executions tend to cluster. We often observe that when a block trade happens there are more block trades that follow creating clusters of liquidity.

And just how flexible and customisable is this workflow? Back to you, Andy.

Very flexible. Once FlexTrade received data from the OpenFin bus, it was just a matter of working out what we wanted to do with it. Workshopping with clients and peers, we identified key functionality requirements. Use cases include automated routing and graphical visualisation. As data is embedded deeply into the blotter, the user can sort, filter and build customized alerts. Continuing with our overall approach, we also extended customization to automated trading as well, as part of our automated algo wheel capabilities. This way, users can route an order through to their preferred brokers or include it as part of their algo wheel. Users can take the data and do whatever they want with it – say, compare it with EBBO or previous trade history. What this development does offer, however, is the opportunity to auto-populate the next trading ticket to capture liquidity opportunities.

And Robert, how does Turquoise interact with the buyside desktop via this innovation?

LSEG worked with OpenFin and FlexTrade to integrate and interoperate directly with the buy-side. The buy side can set rules, through their execution system, that auto-populate tickets to send orders right back to Turquoise when the system observes activity above user defined thresholds, thus increasing the probability of capturing the follow-on natural liquidity as electronic block trades. Because the buyside desktop is ingesting Turquoise data, this model ensures there is no risk of potential information leakage from the buy-side desktop.

Andy, how open is the integration of this workflow across the broader community?

This is a true open architecture platform. Previously developers would have had to build bilateral API connections. OpenFin puts a sanitization layer between FlexTrade and Turquoise, meaning we only needed to build once to OpenFin, and everything else was taken care of. In short, it allows other vendors and applications on the desktop to consume the same data, without having to rebuild the infrastructure into Turquoise.

A question to all three of you – what are the next steps in this evolution?

Adam Toms: We have made great strides in producing important data insights. The next step is around personalising this information and ensuring it is relevant for the user at the right point of their workflow to most impactful for them.

Andy Mahoney: The focus should be on the workflow rather than the application. We must ask how a user traverses all their applications effectively and efficiently – and how the workflow can be tailored to achieve the minimum number of clicks towards a desired outcome and, with that, getting the data into the EMS and the OMS and other systems to ensure best outcomes. The next step is determining the recommended route based on historical activity. This is a step change for the industry to standardise but something we are already investing in, with advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Robert Barnes:  As a market operator, it is a privilege to work with thought leaders like Adam Toms and Andy Mahoney to bring innovative solutions to market participants, so that we can enable investors to capture liquidity at the right price in an efficient way.

Finally, Adam Toms and Dr Robert Barnes – what does this collaboration mean for future innovation?

Robert Barnes: Standardisation enables us to scale and bring timely innovations to market. This is the first time we had three different actors across the trade cycle cooperating to bring this innovation to the buy-side trader and wider industry.

Adam Toms: Working with Turquoise and FlexTrade, demonstrates how firms can adopt a new approach and work together to surface important data on people’s desktops.

With regards to the future, it’s great that people are talking about interoperability. But we need increased open and neutral approach through more participation from other providers in the ecosystem, given the opportunity they can bring.

For help and more information, please contact our Turquoise Team

sales@tradeturquoise.com +44 (0) 20 7382 7650

Trading Innovations | London Stock Exchange