ARTICLE
Trading’s next era: How tech and client demands are reshaping market structure
Bloomberg Professional Services
- Automated trading is evolving rapidly and expanding into new markets, including loans, CLOs and ETFs.
- Technology plays a pivotal role in empowering trading desks to boost efficiency and leverage data-driven insights.
- The need for speed is driving an arms race in technology investment among banks and other financial firms.
As automation in trading continues to evolve, moving from rule-based execution to adaptive, intelligence-driven systems that learn, optimize and respond in real time, financial institutions are embracing technology and prioritizing speed in a highly competitive marketplace.
PRODUCT MENTIONS
At Bloomberg’s Global Markets and Banking Summit, industry leaders emphasized that what was once viewed as a differentiator is quickly becoming table stakes: firms now need faster systems, better data and more flexible workflows simply to keep pace.
Three key tech trends in electronic trading
As technology advances and competition ramps up, three trends are gaining momentum in the trading automation space:
1. Platform modernization: Integrating diverse systems into a cohesive, scalable platform and using open, API-driven architecture to enable seamless functionality.
“It’s important to have the right quantitative and technological overlay for every business, whether a product is traded electronically or not,” says Sonali Theisen, Global Head of FICC E-Trading and Markets Strategic Investments at Bank of America. She notes that on her team, there is no pride of authorship: deciding whether to build, buy or borrow technology solutions is key, as is leveraging tools from other asset classes within the bank.
For technology makers, that same philosophy is shaping how they evolve to meet client needs. “We’re building systems that are fully integrated but also open,” says Dan Tsou, Head of Sell-Side EMS Enterprise Product at Bloomberg. “Clients can plug in their own models, run them in their own environments and adapt their workflows without being locked into a single platform.”
2. Workflow integrations: Unifying complex workflows across sales, trading, risk and compliance and leveraging analytics and AI to streamline processes and reduce operational friction.
“Document-heavy businesses within a bank can be massively streamlined or improved with AI,” says Marty Mannion, MD & Co-Head of Automated Trading for TD Securities. “In electronic trading, it should reduce the cost of execution and provide more liquidity.” He points out that starting with small steps toward automation can pave the way for future adoption. “Something as simple as pricing small RFQs or inventory creates efficiency and builds trust in preparation for full automation.” Mannion also encourages team members who aren’t in tech or quantitative roles to experiment with AI tools in creative ways.
In practice, that means automation is no longer confined to execution itself. It is increasingly influencing everything around the trade, from pre-trade analysis to post-trade support.
“We’re getting faster at all the things we need to do,” says Jim Esposito, President, Citadel Securities. “Running complex risk models, refining them more frequently and ultimately delivering a better price and experience to clients.”
3. Data-driven insights: Analytics and automation are increasingly critical in managing data complexity, driving smarter decisions, supporting risk management and ensuring compliance.
“Generative AI allows sales teams to be more targeted in coverage because they don’t have to manually find and synthesize commentary, research and other information,” says Theisen. “The faster we can make that cycle, the more targeted information they can be giving to our clients.”
For Bloomberg, that shift toward real-time insight is also shaping how trading systems are built.
“We’re enabling clients to embed their own analytics and AI directly into the workflow, so traders can see the insights they need in real time and act on them immediately,” says Tsou.
Why the need for speed still matters most
“In any business, but especially ours, speed matters. Speed to market probably matters more than ever before,” says Esposito. He also notes that the need for speed is fueling a “bit of an arms race” among financial players around computing power as firms invest in the sophisticated technology.
The same is true on the fixed income side: low-latency CLOB markets are in an ongoing arms race to be the fastest, which means that top dealers need the fastest EMS to win. Tsou emphasizes just how fast things are moving in today’s environment.
“Not only do you need your EMS to execute trades in 100 microseconds, you also have to give traders the tools to negotiate a difficult portfolio trade spanning an hour.,” he says. “We rebuilt a new generation of the popup that is measured in milliseconds. It’s faster than the human eye can see.”
But speed alone is not enough. The firms gaining an edge are those that can combine low latency with better decision-making, stronger risk controls and a smoother client experience. As banking leaders navigate this competitive space, keeping clients’ goals in mind is crucial. “It’s about leaning into where our clients are shifting, opportunities they see in the market and problems they’re looking to solve,” says Theisen.
And speed does not carry the same weight across all market structures. In low-latency, CLOB environments, speed remains critical. But in RFQ and portfolio trading workflows, the focus shifts toward efficiency, decision support and managing more complex execution over time.
At the same time, desks are increasingly moving between protocols for RFQ, dealer-to-dealer and CLOB, depending on the asset class and market conditions. This places greater importance on systems that can unify workflows, aggregate liquidity and help traders navigate fragmentation without added operational complexity.
Trading automation beyond electronic markets
Trading automation is advancing at a rapid clip not only in established electronic markets, but also in adjacent asset classes where digital workflows are still taking shape.
Theisen observes that while electronic trading has reached maturity in certain asset classes, it’s still in earlier stages within markets trading alongside those asset classes.
“The U.S. Treasury market, much of the FX market and the U.S. IG market are pretty mature at this point,” she says. “We saw volatility in March, and the percent that went through electronically year-over-year has grown 30%, yet the absolute percent of electronic has actually been relatively stable in those markets.” Looking ahead, she sees electronic trading gaining ground in the loan, CLO ETF and swaps markets as a natural progression from existing mature markets.
According to Mannion, muni fixed-income bid-ask spreads on retail-sized orders are down over 80% over the last 10+ years while trade volumes are up roughly 130% and trade sizes down 30% over the past five years. “All of that has been an unbelievable benefit for the customer,” he says.
Tighter spreads, smaller trade sizes and rising volumes all point to a market structure that is becoming more efficient and more accessible. At the same time, firms in the automated trading space face a variety of challenges and complexities in today’s market, including regulatory standards that demand transparency, real-time oversight and compliance.
In addition, as more trading shifts to electronic platforms, fragmented data and siloed systems(including manual handling of RFQs, disconnected curve trading and limited automation across rates and credit) can put firms at a competitive disadvantage. Finally, as empowered buy-side firms seek faster execution and liquidity, sell-side market-makers are under pressure to adapt or fall behind.
“In terms of where we’re headed, it’s only going to get more automated and more challenging for banks, and competing in these asset classes requires a heavy investment in technology,” says Mannion.
Insights in this article are based on discussions at the Bloomberg Global Markets and Banking Summit event held in New York City in April 2026.
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