As many buy-siders continue global expansion efforts and increasingly branch into non-equity asset classes, not only is the adoption of OEMS solutions increasing, but so is the way these firms are interacting with the systems.
According to The TRADE’s 2025 EMS Survey, when examining the asset classes commonly traded on EMS platforms equities continues to win out, however in the 2025 study, the findings also demonstrate an increase in all other asset classes outside of cash equities.
As a result, the buy-side demand to leverage more than one EMS to meet daily trading needs is on the up.
While more than half of respondents (55%) confirmed that they still use just one EMS, this is a drop of 10% in the number of firms using a single system. The latest findings show that the number of firms using two EMS solutions has increased by 9%.
Notably, and perhaps expectedly, firms with higher AUM were found to use a greater number of EMS solutions.
The 2025 survey showed that firms with between $10 billion and $50 billion were found to have the highest average at 1.77 EMS solutions, whereas firms with between $0.5 billion and $1 billion showed the lowest average at 1.35.
However, comparing to results in 2023, and 2024, this gap appears to be shrinking year-on-year.
Read more – Leaders in Trading 2025: EMS Awards shortlists revealed
The evolving priorities on the buy-side, and its reflection in approaches to EMS’, was also clear in respondents’ ranking of key features.
When it came to feature importance, the most significant year-on-year increase for 2025 was ‘breadth of coverage’ – up 8.88%, closely followed by ‘connectivity and integration’, increasing 6.66%. Other key areas also included ‘FIX capabilities’ (up 3.90%), and integration of ‘OMS’ (up 3.77%).
Demonstrably, the demand for the EMS sphere to evolve in step with buy-side ambitions remains front of mind, with continuing diversification set to drive further evolution and innovation on the provider side.
The full 2025 survey can be accessed here.