More than 500 people attended the FIX Protocol EMEA Trading conference in London last week, making it the largest financial services conference in London so far this year and delighting the organisers.

If there was a pervasive theme at the conference it was that the buy-side has to become more active in the business, from helping to shape regulation to making decisions about technology.
“We should have greater participation in the market framework,” said the head of equity trading for a leading asset manager. (Conference rules don’t allow citing participants by name unless they agree, and getting approval on quotes is time consuming, although still underway. Watch this space …)
“The buy side needs to get involved in the debate about liquidity venues,” said another. “Some are good, some are bad, down to the buyside to get involved. If we leave it to the brokering community it doesn’t necessarily lead us to be where we want to be.”
The buy side has been too reliant on the brokers for technology, he added.
“We are extremely slow to deliver projects, and that is bad when the pace of change in the markets is increasing. I do find it frustrating that we are reliant on other (sell side) houses to deliver to us things they say we should be using.”

Filed under: Technology