Congratulations on your win at The TRADE’s Leaders in Trading awards. What, for you, were the contributing factors behind the successful year that led to this award?
The success of Northern Trust’s Integrated Trading Solutions (ITS) this year is the result of a relentless focus on client-centric innovation, strategic investment in technology, and a commitment to operational excellence. Our ability to anticipate client needs and deliver tailored solutions – supported by a robust, global operating platform – has set us apart in a rapidly evolving market.
We’ve prioritised cross-team integration, ensuring that our trading, operations, and technology teams work seamlessly to deliver value at every stage of the investment lifecycle. This collaborative approach, combined with our ongoing investment in solutions that support operating model efficiencies across the lifecycle, has enabled us to consistently deliver superior outcomes for our clients and achieve industry recognition.
Could you outline some of the main achievements and milestones from the year?
This year, ITS achieved significant milestones:
Market expansion: We continued to expand our global reach, driven by an increase in demand for fixed income outsourced trading, as well as asset managers looking to reduce costs in a challenging market environment. ITS provides a global outsourced trading solution that covers multiple asset classes and offers 24/6 market coverage in more than 80 markets. Through ITS, Northern Trust’s clients can access a large global network of more than 450 brokers, including global firms and local specialists in equities, fixed income, and derivatives.
Settlement lifecycle readiness: We played a pivotal role in preparing for the US transition to T+1 settlement by implementing comprehensive enhancements across the trading lifecycle. These included strengthening pre-trade controls, optimising trade processing and matching through automation, coordinating funding and liquidity with counterparties, and leveraging ITS’s 24/6 global infrastructure for operational resiliency.
Client expansion: our growth was further propelled by asset owner clients who traditionally manage their portfolios in-house, now selecting Northern Trust for outsourced trading services. By partnering with us, these asset owners benefit from enhanced trading efficiency and broader execution coverage, leveraging our specialised expertise.
How do you plan to build on this success going into 2026?
Looking ahead, our strategy is to build on our momentum through continued investment in technology, talent, and client partnerships. Key priorities include:
Innovation and differentiation: we are committed to staying ahead of industry trends by investing in automation and data analytics to enhance the speed, precision, and transparency of our services. This includes further enhancement of robust trade cost analytics across asset classes to support transparency and performance oversight of trading results.
Client-centric solutions: our focus remains on deepening engagement with our clients through data-driven solutions that deliver differentiated value.
Building on our strengths: our ITS offering continues to build upon Northern Trust’s foundation of strength and stability, and clients value the combination of consultative service and global capabilities we offer. As a pioneer in outsourced trading, we continue to be a leader in this industry, delivering solutions that help our clients succeed.
Regulatory and market change: much like we did for the North American move to T+1, we will continue our preparations for upcoming regulatory and settlement changes for global T+1.
