Trading technology firm Adaptive has partnered with financial messaging protocol provider Rapid Addition to integrate FIX capabilities into Adaptive’s custom trading technology platforms, The TRADE can reveal.

Matt Barrett
Speaking to The TRADE, Matt Barrett, chief executive and co-founder of Adaptive, explains: “From simplifying client onboarding to seamlessly integrating order flow when building custom front-office trading systems, the value this will provide to clients can’t be overstated.
“[…] At Adaptive, we have a long-standing reputation for providing customers with best-in-class trading systems. With this new partnership, we will be able to go beyond the capabilities of standard FIX engines, creating even more comprehensive, agile and robust solutions for capital markets firms.”
The integration is being made possible through Adaptive’s open-source messaging and clustering technology, Aeron.
Paul Weiss, chief technology officer, Adaptive, adds: ”Aeron technology is specifically designed to help even the most complex of capital markets firms build fault-tolerant, high-performance trading technology successfully. As Rapid Addition’s platform is built on Aeron technology, we share the same technological building blocks – there are therefore huge synergies between our businesses.
“Our Aeron expertise and Rapid Addition’s FIX expertise gives clients a greater depth of knowledge and new capabilities that will make a meaningful difference to their businesses.”
Rapid Addition’s scalable FIX platform can handle thousands of connections and provides support for all versions of the the Financial Information Exchange (FIX) protocol – as well as “custom rules of engagement”.
Owned by the FIX Trading Community, the protocol was designed in an attempt to simplify workflows and reduce error by creating an industry standard adopted by all. Through their new partnership, Adaptive will “build bespoke front-office trading systems with complex, global, high-volume connectivity requirements beyond the capabilities of standard FIX engines, creating more comprehensive, agile and robust solutions for capital markets clients”.
Read more: Fireside Friday with… FIX Trading Community’s Jim Kaye
This collaboration claims to enable firms to simplify counterparty FIX onboarding and order routing workflow and comes as the market continues to see increasing necessity for clients to stay on top of regulatory change and margin pressures, emphasising the need to leverage solutions to up their own responsiveness.
Mike Powell, chief executive of Rapid Addition tells The TRADE: “We view this partnership as a genuinely strategic initiative. One of the key market trends we are seeing is a widespread review of legacy trading platforms with a desire by firms to shift to a more agile, orchestrated approach, combining the best of third-party tech with in-house applications.
“Our collaboration with Adaptive aims to seamlessly bring together our respective strengths in supporting trading workflow, while enabling easy integration to our customers’ broader trading system and technology choices.”