BBVA Asset Management is merging its European order management system with its Latin American system in Mexico.
It is the latest bank-owned asset manager to move to a new global OMS, following in the recent footsteps of JP Morgan Asset Management, BMO Global Asset Management and GE Asset Management.
The Spanish investment manager – which has more than $112 billion in assets under management – is in the process of implementing the new OMS, designed to make it easier for its traders to share information across regions.
Speaking to The Trade, Pablo Fernandez-Gomez, senior dealer at BBVA Asset Management, said: “We are in the middle of merging our Mexican desk with our Madrid desk. In the next six months we are going to merge both proprietary order management systems into a single one.
“We have implemented a proprietary OMS that gathers the trades from the two different portfolio management systems. We can send orders to several different platforms.”
The group currently sends orders via ITG Triton, Bloomberg EMSX, RFQ Hub, Liquidnet and Tradeweb depending on asset class.
Fernandez-Gomez said the firm is continuing to look at new platforms which can be plugged into the system.
In recent months, the business has upgraded its system to meet new requirements under the second European Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II), which have greater obligations in terms of audit trails.
Fernandez-Gomez added: “We are in the process of understanding what MiFID II means and are collaborating with all satellite departments around the execution desk.”