Sayant Chatterjee is Chief Operating Officer at LiquidityBook.
What were the key theme(s) for your business in 2022?
While LiquidityBook has historically been thought of primarily as a buyside technology vendor, 2022 saw more and more awareness of our ability to solve complex problems for the sell-side. These firms, regardless of where they sit, need to become more efficient in capturing their clients’ order flow, which is often accomplished not just through advanced technology but with higher touch, more personalized service. We’ve spent much time and energy working with our sell side partners to solve for this, culminating this year in the launch of LBX Portal, a white-label solution that lets our brokerage and clearing clients offer tailored services to their end clients in a scalable, cost-efficient and differentiated way. We’re excited about the amount of sell-side focused product we’ll soon be able to roll out, as we see this as a segment of the market that’s been woefully underserve by legacy vendors.
What was the highlight of 2022?
2022 was a year of considerable investment in product – for the front-, middle- and back-office – at LiquidityBook. To start, we completely refactored our browser-based UI so it can now operate as a multi-window desktop app running outside a web browser and perform with the level of speed and responsiveness that the most demanding traders require. We also launched an entirely new API framework for accessing our platform, which will be key to allowing our sell-side partners to offer their end clients a combination of powerful off-the-shelf technology alongside their proprietary capabilities, like risk management or monitoring tools. Our long-term vision is to build a unified stack that allows us to become a true next-generation solution provider to both the buy- and sell-sides – so offering clearing, risk, FIX, OMS and EMS, all of which integrates just as easily with existing vendor solutions as it does with in-house solutions – and 2022 saw us take a quantum leap forward toward that goal.
What are your expectations for 2023?
The past few years have seen the emergence of several new technology-driven clearing brokers, all of whom run next-generation technology stacks purpose built for today’s markets. These brokers require equally flexible and extensible technology solutions for mission critical functions like risk calculation and FIX normalization/aggregation, which has created opportunities for firms with open technology and data frameworks like LiquidityBook. As more and more cloud-enabled market participants come online, we see huge opportunities for vendors who are able to operate at the speed and scale needed to service them.
What are your clients’ pain points and how have they changed from 1 year ago?
On the technology side, one of the biggest challenges for the sell-side is vendor partners who are unable to adapt their software quickly enough to meet changing workflow needs. We’ve heard this for many years, but in 2022 it seemed to become endemic, so much so that brokers have increasingly begun inquiring about modular solutions – say middle office to start – versus the traditional wholesale replacement approach. This has the potential to significantly level the playing field for smaller vendors whose technology might be far superior to a larger legacy vendor but who might struggle with a massive global onboard. The ramifications of this shift could be profound.
