In the increasingly competitive financial trading market, access to the right technology platforms and services drives a competitive edge and the rate and pace of change can be challenging for internal teams to maintain. At TNS, we help clients reduce cost and complexity across every element of market data related spend and support, including hosting, connectivity, middleware distribution, market data usage and incident management. An important aspect of our strategy is remaining agnostic to the market, in the sense that we support all normalised feed providers and market data vendors.
Can you successfully go it alone?
Trading success requires accessing extremely powerful servers, with the best data lines and connections close to where the trade is physically taking place. Ultra low latency trading is vital for algorithmic trading, and trade execution speed is critical to ensure the best execution. The best low latency trading strategies depend on powerful servers housed close to exchange matching engines, be these in Europe, the Americas or Asia. Does your financial institution have the understanding, resources, talent and bandwidth to execute an effective market access strategy in-house? If not, it needs to, as behind every transaction is a labyrinth of algorithms and networking infrastructure that converge in one location: the data center.
For most firms, the answer is partnering with a company that delivers market data feeds across the entire trading infrastructure stack. TNS is the only Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider to combine a vendor-neutral approach to market data application management, alongside end-to-end hosting, market data and consulting services specifically for the financial markets industry. Having recently acquired West Highland Support Services, we combine connectivity, monitoring and consulting into one stack to traders and financial services vendors worldwide.
What about Cloud?
Traditional financial trading firms, from exchanges and data vendors, to brokers, hedge funds, and even proprietary trading firms, are now embracing cloud computing. In contrast, cloud is the go-to for FinTech start-ups, driving innovation in financial markets. The cost benefits of the cloud for trading and execution are clear. It significantly reduces upfront costs of setting up infrastructure.
Another benefit of cloud computing is that it can be accessed by the user from anywhere. That said, firms need a clear strategy for cloud implementation. Public clouds can be cost effective to put data in and keep it there, however, taking data out is expensive. Public cloud environments are great for big data analysis and help financial firms store, move, and manage large amounts of data. It is also good for transferring large volumes of data between regions, like London and New York, and can support adherence to different regulatory requirements, for example, by enabling real-time monitoring of trading activity.
TNS Cloud – Server Management combines our dedicated server hosting capabilities with hands-on server management, providing an end-to-end offering to dramatically reduce clients’ trading centre complexity and costs. Trying to keep up with operating system updates are major pain points that increase costs and reduce time to market opportunities for our customers, we can provide not only infrastructure, but in-depth server management that frees up our client’s tech teams to focus on their core business and move faster toward increased trading profitability.
A specialist partner
Traders need reliable connectivity and market data feeds to drive their trading. They need to work with specialist companies that build shared networks and colocation footprints, offering access to market data and trading connectivity on demand. By using these shared infrastructure services, traders get the benefits of expertise and technology, at a fraction of the cost of doing it for themselves.
These are just some of the considerations you need to make when outsourcing to a managed service provider such as TNS. Cost savings and economies of scale will be front of mind for many firms this year and can often be difficult to achieve when going it alone. Through our recent acquisition of West Highland, we have the expanded capability to help clients to reduce cost and complexity across every element of market data related spend and support, which now includes market data middleware, application, and commercial management.
For more information, visit tnsi.com/solutions/financial/.
Jeff Mezger is Vice President of Product Management at TNS with responsibility for its managed services for the financial industry. He oversees product development and strategy for market data, online and data centre services.
