The solution, called SIX Fixed Income Data, is designed to provide banks, asset managers, wealth managers and hedge funds globally with reliable fixed income data, based off an array of information sourced from global markets.  

The provider has said that the offering will give clients access to data for 3.6 million US instruments across municipal, corporate and government debt, and structured finance, and will reduce reliance on inconsistent and error-prone sources to price securities, manage risk, and comply with regulations.  

“Until recently, many market participants were constrained by offerings with inflexible commercial terms or forced to combine disparate data sources that lacked completeness and accuracy,” said Swati Bhatia, head of fixed income, financial information at SIX. 

“By launching SIX Fixed Income Data, we are giving market participants the coverage, reliability, and pricing flexibility they need in the asset class that represents the largest segment of the global capital markets.” 

SIX highlighted that the original issuance and lifestyle documentation of the offering is fully owned by the provider and will be available through its centralised platform.  

Similarly, it has said that SIX’s API-driven infrastructure will tackle issues of long onboarding times and disruptions that arise from using alternative solutions, by streamlining the integration of data into clients’ workflows, combined with transparent pricing and scalable licensing.  

Read more – SIX rolls out regulatory data service for digital assets 

In recent months, the expansion and launch of new data services has been a focus for the company. SIX Fixed Income Data’s announcement follows the Digital Assets Regulatory and Tax Service launched by the provider at the beginning of April 2025, designed to provide institutions with a single information source to help identify their exposure to digital assets and remain compliant with evolving regulations.   

The post SIX launches new data offering for global fixed income markets appeared first on The TRADE.

Bjørn Sibbern

Its exchanges unit – comprised of SIX Swiss Exchange, SIX Digital Exchange and Borsa Madrid (BME) – generated operating income of $383.26 million, up 2.6% compared to the previous year, with the firm highlighting the business unit’s new organisational structure – adopted in June 2024 – wherein the exchange took on an asset-class-based approach.  

The new setup features specialised teams, “irrespective of location,” supported by shared functions, added SIX.  

Specifically, its exchanges business unit saw trading operating income total $268.09 million, up from $265.26 million in 2023.  

Set to further bolster the segment is the acquisition of Aquis Exchange by SIX, announced in November 2024. The intended transaction is a major step, set to shake up the European equities landscape. 

At the time the deal was announced, SIX highlighted that it considered the move to be a “compelling strategic opportunity which will complement its strategy to scale the exchange business beyond its home markets”.  

The combined resources and capabilities of SIX and Aquis create a pan-European exchange across traditional primary exchange and MTF businesses. 

Speaking at the time, Bjørn Sibbern, chief executive at SIX, said: “The combination will add Aquis’ strong offering to our traditional primary exchange and data businesses, complementing SIX’s existing growth listing segments. 

Read more: SIX agrees to acquire Aquis Exchange 

Elsewhere, the Group’s securities services unit also saw growth, recording an operating income of $613.38, up 1.8% year-on-year, attributed to significant growth in international custody. 

SIX also linked its growth in total operating income to its diversified business model, with revenues up across funds trading, debit card services, mobile payments, eBill, and international securities custody, as well as in reference data, regulatory services, and indices.  

“We have a strong foundation to build from and will leverage it more effectively to accelerate growth and enhance profitability,” said Sibbern.  

“This will see us bolster the Group’s position as a leading pan-European financial market infrastructure provider, while enhancing our high-value global data offering in an increasingly competitive landscape.” 

The positive earnings follow a string of similar results from other venues released earlier this year. 

In February, Euronext posted positive full year earnings, achieving double digit revenue growth which it attributed to a diversified revenue profile, while more recently, the London Stock Exchange (LSEG) saw overall growth across its key businesses in 2024, with significant improvement in capital markets. 

The post SIX’s total operating income up 4.6% as exchanges restructure reaps rewards appeared first on The TRADE.

This initiative aims to enhance market interoperability and encourage competition within European financial markets. Through expanding its clearing services, SIX seeks to improve market efficiency, reduce counterparty risk, and streamline trading operations. 

Starting in March 2025, trades executed on Euronext markets in these locations will have access to SIX x-clear’s preferred clearing services, with Euronext Italy scheduled for integration by Q2 2025.  

Laura Bayley, head clearing services at SIX, said: “This expansion of our connected platforms marks a significant achievement for SIX. We are pleased to further demonstrate our commitment to enhancing efficiency and creating value for our members.”  

Bayley added: “By offering an additional choice of CCP, we are confident that this will boost transparency, sustainability, and resilience within the financial sector.”  

SIX will utilise its clearing infrastructure and risk management systems to facilitate secure and efficient trading across Europe.  

The post SIX introduces preferred clearing for Euronext markets appeared first on The TRADE.

The new development will see ThaiQuest gain access to the SIX financial data product suite through its data gateway designed for digital financial platforms, SIX Web API. 

The partnership seeks to bolster ThaiQuest’s data services by integrating market insights from SIX, offering its users more accurate market data and improving user experience.  

“We are delighted to partner with ThaiQuest and strengthen our support for financial markets across Asia,” said Matthew Nurse, global product director, financial information at SIX.  

“The financial data and API toolset from SIX is the ideal fit for digital applications and platforms, built for reliability and scale.” 

Read more: Fireside Friday with… SIX’s Marion Leslie 

The move will see market data from SIX fully integrated into ThaiQuest’s terminals, offering users access to improved financial information.   

Leveraging the SIX Web API, this partnership also enables efficient data processing, real-time delivery, and an enhanced user experience for financial professionals. 

In addition, the partnership comes as part of SIX’s goal to establish a strong presence in Asia. 

 “This partnership represents a step forward for ThaiQuest, as we continue to innovate and enhance our offerings,” said Pongsaya Hongswadhi, chief executive at ThaiQuest.  

“With the reliable data and modern API technology from SIX, we’re better equipped to serve our clients and meet the demands of a rapidly evolving financial landscape.” 

The post SIX enhances Asia market data access through partnership with ThaiQuest appeared first on The TRADE.

Speaking in an announcement today, Aquis highlighted “economic reasons” as their motivation behind pulling out of the joint venture. 

Speaking to The TRADE, a spokesperson for Cboe Europe said: “We have worked closely with Aquis to explore, via the SimpliCT joint venture, participation in the public tender process to operate the EU equities consolidated tape. However, after careful consideration we have together decided against proceeding any further.
 
“We remain strong advocates for the tape and, its potential to strengthen the EU market ecosystem, by helping to drive a more competitive, integrated and attractive EU market and offering choice and flexibility to market data consumers. We remain committed to supporting regulators and the industry to help deliver a tape that meets users’ needs.”

Read more: Will the European equities tape tender process end up as a one-horse race?

The update follows news that SIX would be acquiring Aquis, as announced 11 November 2024. SIX is one of the 14 exchanges backing EuroCTP (first announced in the third quarter of 2023) as its shareholders.

At the time of the Aquis deal being announced, it was reported that SIX could potentially withdraw from the EuroCTP consortium.

Speaking at the time, SIX said that following completion of the acquisition, “if Aquis continues to explore or is pursuing a bid to perform the equity consolidated tape provider role, SIX intends to withdraw from EuroCTP, the consortium for the consolidated tape provider role that SIX is participating in”.

Read more:  SIX agrees to acquire Aquis Exchange 

Named SimpliCT, the Cboe and Aquis venture was announced in October 2024 and set to be a co-owned Netherlands-based company seeking to leverage the expertise of its founders to develop a “best-of-breed equity CT”.

However, the potential bid for the European equities consolidated tape now – at least publicly – is back to being a one-horse race, with EuroCTP the only other confirmed interested party.

Read more:  European exchanges launch JV for CTP tender

The European Commission has mandated the creation of a single entity to operate a real-time pre- and post-trade CT for equities for five years as part of the Mifir Review, which came into force in April earlier this year – the official selection process will begin this June, the European Securities and Market Authority (ESMA) previously confirmed.

The successful applicant is set to be announced by the end of 2025.

The post Aquis and Cboe step away from consolidated tape joint venture appeared first on The TRADE.

Sibbern will succeed Jos Dijsselhof, who is set to step down as CEO to pursue a new professional opportunity in the Middle East, following seven years with SIX. Since joining SIX as CEO in 2018, Dijsselhof has helped developed the company commercially, while also expanding its international presence. Dijsselhof will remain at SIX until the end of February 2025 to ensure a smooth transition.

Fixed income investment bank KNG Securities added Mert Kisacik to its fixed income sales team, where he will hold responsibility for Turkish and Israeli markets. As part of the role, Kisacik will focus on finding liquidity in both sovereign and corporate bonds for the firm’s clients, with a primary focus on hard currency bonds. He joined KNG from Morgan Stanley, where he spent the last two years, most recently as part of the bank’s emerging markets cross asset sales team. Elsewhere in his career, Kisacik worked at Yapi Kredi, one of Turkey’s first nationwide commercial banks.

Kezar Markets’ chief executive officer, Whit Conary is set to retire from his role by the end of this year following 18 years in the position. Steve Miele, who currently serves as chief strategy officer, has been appointed new chief executive officer of Kezar Marekts, effective 1 January 2025.

Conary’s capital markets career spans four decades, with his retirement paving the way for Kezar Markets’ continued growth plans. Meanwhile, Kazer Markets noted that the appointment of Steve Miele as CEO is a natural progression following his role overseeing strategy, sales, and product development at LeveL ATS and Kezar Markets for 17 years.

The post People Moves Monday: SIX, KNG Securities and Kezar Markets appeared first on The TRADE.

Bjørn Sibbern

Bjørn Sibbern has been appointed chief executive officer at SIX, effective 1 January 2025.

Since the beginning of the year, Sibbern has been leading the international exchange business of SIX as global head exchanges and a member of the group executive board.

He brings more than 20 years’ experience in capital markets, having held a range of positions at Nasdaq, OMX Exchanges and E*TRADE Bank Denmark – the latter of which he served as CEO.

“I am delighted that in Bjørn, we have been able to appoint a proven and highly connected capital markets expert from our ranks as new CEO,” said Thomas Wellauer, chairman of SIX. 

“Since joining SIX a year ago, we have experienced Bjørn as a strong, highly motivated and proactive leader. With his excellent track record, Bjørn has the necessary international expertise and leadership qualities to further pursue and accelerate the growth path of SIX”.

Sibbern will succeed Jos Dijsselhof, who is set to step down as CEO to pursue a new professional opportunity in the Middle East, following seven years with SIX.

Since joining SIX as CEO in 2018, Dijsselhof has helped developed the company commercially, while also expanding its international presence.

He successfully implemented the strategic realignment of SIX and further diversified the company’s business portfolio.

Under his leadership, SIX executed key acquisitions, such as the purchase of the Spanish Stock Exchange BME, as well as other international investments, particularly in the financial information sector.

Most recently, SIX agreed to aquire Aquis Exchange in a landmark deal set to elevate the exchange operator’s exchange offering throughout Europe.

Read more: SIX agrees to acquire Aquis Exchange

Dijsselhof will remain at SIX until the end of February 2025 to ensure a smooth transition.

“On behalf of the board of directors of SIX, I would like to extend our sincere gratitude to Jos for his dedicated leadership,” added Wellauer.

“Over the past seven years, he has strengthened the international footprint of SIX, championed innovation such as SDX, and has been instrumental in transforming and modernising the corporate culture of SIX, thus positioning the company for further success. We wish Jos all the best in his new endeavours.”

The post SIX promotes its global exchange head to become CEO as Dijsselhof steps down appeared first on The TRADE.

Last week Aquis and Cboe announced that they were teaming up to explore a bid to become the EU’s equity consolidated tape.

Named SimpliCT, the new venture will be based in the Netherlands and co-owned by Cboe and Aquis as equal shareholders.

The endeavour would be competing with the SIX-backed initative, EuroCTP, which was first announced in the third quarter of 2023 and is backed by 14 exchanges as its shareholders.

Subsequently, SIX has said today that following completion of the acquisition, “if Aquis continues to explore or is pursuing a bid to perform the equity consolidated tape provider role, SIX intends to withdraw from EuroCTP, the consortium for the consolidated tape provider role that SIX is participating in”.

Read more: SIX agrees to acquire Aquis Exchange 

Speaking at the time SimpliCT was announced, Alasdair Haynes, chief executive of Aquis, asserted: “This proposed joint venture would not only represent a cost-efficient, robust business model that integrates advanced complementary, proprietary technologies, it would also be designed to deliver fair compensation for data contribution, aligning the interests of contributors and consumers.” 

This news from SIX around its withdrawal may come as a shock to the market as EuroCTP remains the only confirmed bidder for the European Union equities tape thus far, though others have made public their interest and potential to enter the tender process. 

Read more: European exchanges launch JV for CTP tender

Chief executive of EuroCTP Eglantine Desautel previously told The TRADE that EuroCTP is now in the process of firming up its plans to make its official bid in 2025 and has finalised the shortlisting process for its prospective technology partners and is working towards a final selection for August or September. 

The JV is made up of participants across 26 of the EU’s member states and includes: BME, Deutsche Boerse Group, Euronext exchanges (Borsa Italiana, Amsterdam, Brussels, Dublin, Lison, Paris, Oslo Børs), Luxembourg Stock Exchange, and Nasdaq exchanges (Stockholm, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Iceland, Riga, Tallinn, and Vilnius), among others.

The post SIX could withdraw from EuroCTP consortium following Aquis deal appeared first on The TRADE.

The evolution of data has moved on and the focus is now on taking action with the data whether that’s trading, investments, risk management, or anything else – it’s about making a difference with the data. 

Now it’s about how we present data so that it’s ready to use and ready to trade. This includes asking key questions like whether data is ready for regulation, or for risk, etc. It’s about applying a use case for the data and making a difference with it instead of just providing a large volume of it. Previously it was stuck on a database and expected to be sorted out by whoever was accessing it, with the onus on companies to pipe the information around a firm and create applications which can use it. Now, instead of having to wrangle it a certain way, the market is able to take that increasingly sophisticated approach of having true data as a service. Making the difference with data is all about how it’s presented and proving effectiveness with use cases.

SIX’s most recent future of finance report found that almost half of asset managers believe data velocity is the key challenge for enabling analytics to drive growth, why is this?

We believe that the trend with data is all centred around the volume, the variety and the velocity and specific to the velocity is real time data. It used to be the domain of the real time trader but actually the entire industry is moving from the back- and middle-office into the front-office. Now, the timeliness requirements are being needed all the way through the process. It’s necessary to have that data available in real time because if you see the market moving, you want to be able to recalculate your risk immediately. No one wants to have to wait for end of day anymore. 

Processes that used to be end of day or even end of month are now intra- or same day. Additionally, intra-day risk management is much more real time than it ever was and that is all across the industry. Regulators’ stance is now focused on the industry understanding their risk in real time and that has dramatically changed the way that risk managers, middle-office, back-office and asset managers have started to view data. If you have an overnight sanction ruling, then you need to be ready for trading the next morning. It’s a new status quo.

How are asset managers handling this increasing amount of data compliance requirements from regulators?

Historically, some of the activity has effectively been outsourced and been provided to them as a service by the sell-side, but that has changed as regulation on the buy-side has increased. There is now far more onus on the asset manager, for example with investor protection, as they’re required to actually process and manage their own regulations and not be dependent on the sell-side. They’re effectively having to be self-sufficient and understand both their own regulatory risk and the implications of what they’re managing down through their portfolio without handing the responsibility off to their counterpart. 

What this means is that a lot of them are starting to manage data more themselves. They’re demanding services to support that data and taking on approaches focused not just on operational, but also on regulatory and risk management aspects. Some asset managers are effectively creating this supporting infrastructure, in some cases, from scratch. They don’t have the legacy infrastructure challenges that some of the sell-side has. You can see that with the rise in roles like chief data officer much more at asset managers now.

A Coalition Greenwich/SIX report in August 2023 found that 80% of buy-side firms expected market data spending to go up across the board, how is this playing out? 

That has certainly not abated and while I don’t think we will see a kind of overnight change, a trend is emerging. It’s linked to the previous point where, the more that you do yourself, the more that you have to have the ingredients available – the sources of information. However, it’s also about what’s driving that. The rise in passive investing is one example, driving a massive increase in ETFs. As ETF issuers operate with tight margins, technology is going to play a key role in helping firms to drive changes in their business models. And technology consumes data. SIX acquired Ultumus, ETF data and platform provider, to address just these challenges. 

Another facet again is regulation. Every time you have a regulation, that text then has to be turned into something that you could report on, file, demonstrate and you need to have independent and trusted data to do that.

Also, technology is incredibly data hungry, so every time you hear the word automation or digitisation or data science or AI, that’s all about data being needed to drive it. You can’t just feed in any old data in order to answer a demand at the other end, it’s all about trusted data being the fuel of those technologies that enable firms to make quicker, smarter, better decisions. It’s because of all of these interlinked requirements that more and more firms are investing in data – many times it means that they want to buy the cakes, they don’t want the ingredients so much. This is data as a service. 

Why has the market been seeing an increased focus on fixed income data across the market? 

Fixed income is driven largely by the inflationary and interest rate environment. So, when interest rates were low, fixed income was less attractive of course, but with inflation and interest rates that has really kickstarted an increased demand for fixed income. We recently closed the acquisition of FactEntry – a data supplier for fixed income – to really bolster our data coverage.

Moves like this are again linked to making it easier for customers who want to be able to access things their preferred way as a service. They want to be able to determine when they consume it and how they consume it and we’re getting much better as an industry about tapping into those needs and use cases.

The post Fireside Friday with… SIX’s Marion Leslie appeared first on The TRADE.

The acquisition closed yesterday 27 March. Financial details are yet to be disclosed.

Marion Leslie, head of financial information and member of SIX’s executive board highlighted how the deal marks a significant step in the firm’s growth plans: “FactEntry’s expertise and data offerings will greatly enhance our fixed income data capabilities and enable us to provide even greater value to our customers.

“This acquisition represents a significant milestone in our plans to broaden the breadth and depth of our cross-asset content. By combining FactEntry’s expertise with our own, we are creating a truly compelling global cross-asset data provider for the front, middle, and back office.”

Read more: Fireside Friday…with SIX’s Jos Dijsselhof

FactEntry’s offering includes reference data and corporate actions which complement SIX’s existing cross-asset data capabilities, according to the firm.

SIX is also set to leverage FactEntry’s data collection and processing following completion of the deal, set to accelerate SIX’s time to market for new products and services.

Relatedly, a SIX and Coalition Greenwich report last August found that 80% of buy-side firms surveyed expect spending to go up across the board for market data in the next year.

With buy-side market data costs on the rise asset managers were shown to be tapping fixed income in particular, along with equities and exchange traded funds for the greatest spend looking forward. The report found that buy-side asset managers expected fixed income market data spend to go up by 13% in the next year, followed by 10% for equities and 10% for ETFs.

The post SIX picks up majority stake in fixed income data provider FactEntry appeared first on The TRADE.