The Evolving Middle Office: A Seal of Approval

The middle-office technology supporting the futures industry is finally evolving after years of underdevelopment and a lack of innovation. Buy-side clients have been demanding their Futures Commission Merchants (FCMs) provide new and improved tools to allow their trades to be processed and reconciled on a near-real-time basis. The middle office is the heartbeat of this function, and the systems that support it drive straight-through-processing (STP).

The futures middle-office space is dominated by two players: FIS (Stream Clearvision) and ION (SEALS/Prysm). TABB Group reached out to C-level operations and business executives to discuss the state of the middle office and investigate the technology improvements to date. We spoke at length to a variety of professionals from a cross section of firms, including global and regional FCMs at banks, independent FCMs/broker-dealers, and self-clearing organizations.