69% of Buy-Side Firms Want Unified FX Risk View, Survey Shows

A new study from Trading Technologies and Acuiti found that 69% of buy-side firms rank a unified, real-time view of risk as the top benefit of consolidating FX and listed derivatives execution systems. The survey of 65 hedge funds, proprietary trading firms, and asset managers signals a shift in how institutional traders think about multi-asset technology.

Cost savings came second. Only 52% cited improved execution quality as a priority, and 46% pointed to broader algorithmic capabilities. The clear winner was risk visibility across asset classes.

The structural problem behind those numbers has persisted for decades. Currency markets grew up around bilateral dealer relationships and OTC execution. Futures and options were built on centralized exchanges with standardised contracts and clearing. Trading technology mirrored that divide, leaving many firms running two separate stacks.

A trader hedging a European bond position today may need to execute the underlying instrument, manage duration through futures, and adjust EUR/USD exposure as part of the same decision. Separate systems can introduce timing gaps, duplicate controls, and fragmented position data across what is economically one trade.

Trading Technologies has been building toward that convergence. In May, the company expanded its FX offering to combine OTC and listed markets inside the same workflow, letting institutional traders manage spot FX, derivatives, and related positions without switching platforms. Tomo Tokuyama, Executive Vice President and Managing Director of FX at Trading Technologies, said risk management now drives demand beyond the obvious cost efficiencies of consolidation. "Sophisticated buy-side participants understand that risk management is one of the keys to their success," Tokuyama said. "This survey reinforced that it is a priority that goes beyond the obvious cost efficiencies of consolidation."

Tokuyama added that a multi-asset system must still accommodate the specific trading and risk workflows of each asset class. That point goes directly to the biggest obstacle in the survey: migration risk. Almost half of the firms surveyed identified the transition as the main factor that could prevent them from moving to a unified workflow.

An EMS connects traders to brokers, liquidity providers, venues, algorithms, market data, compliance tools, and downstream systems. Migrating from one platform to another can require rebuilding connectivity, replicating order controls, and validating execution behavior. A failed migration can create more operational risk than the fragmented setup it was designed to replace.

Ross Lancaster, Head of Research at Acuiti, said buy-side firms are reconsidering their O/EMS architecture. "Our research found significant demand for a single, real-time view of risk across asset classes," Lancaster said. "There remain concerns about the transition and the migration risk."

The survey also found that 28% of respondents would be more likely to trade FX if it were integrated into their existing OMS or EMS. That number suggests operational friction affects market participation. If FX requires separate systems, integrations, and workflows, adding a currency position carries overhead beyond the economics of the trade itself.

FIS updated its Cross-Asset Trading and Risk Suite around the same consolidation problem, bringing order management, portfolio monitoring, and risk controls into a common infrastructure layer. Trading Technologies is also preparing a buy-side fixed income EMS that will place bonds alongside futures, options, and currencies, with ICE Data Services supplying pricing and reference data. The system is designed to give traders a common environment for instruments that historically developed on separate technology stacks.

OTT FX is fundamentally different from listed derivatives. Liquidity can come from banks, non-bank market makers, ECNs, and disclosed or anonymous venues. Execution protocols vary by counterparty and product. A multi-asset EMS cannot simply treat FX as another instrument added to an existing futures screen. It must preserve the market's liquidity relationships, pricing streams, and execution algorithms while integrating those workflows with the rest of the portfolio.

TT's earlier integration of EBS illustrates the challenge. The company connected EBS Market and outlined access to EBS Direct and FX Spot+, bringing anonymous central-limit-order-book liquidity, disclosed relationship trading, and listed CME FX products together inside the same EMS. The value of consolidation depends on retaining those differences rather than forcing every market into the same execution model.

Twenty-eight percent of respondents said combining FX with the OMS or EMS used for other asset classes would make them more likely to trade currencies. That does not mean consolidation will automatically generate more volume. It suggests operational friction can affect whether a desk participates in a market.

The survey's emphasis on risk is notable because EMS consolidation has traditionally been sold as an efficiency exercise. Reducing the number of applications can lower licensing, integration, and support costs. The Trading Technologies study suggests sophisticated trading firms see a more valuable benefit in eliminating gaps between positions. A unified view of trading positions can reduce timing gaps while creating more consistent order controls and routing logic. That matters when exposures are spread across markets that move together but are executed through different infrastructure.

The challenge is that consolidation only creates value if the resulting system retains the execution quality and controls that specialist platforms already provide. The industry is unlikely to move from fragmented technology to a single universal system overnight. What the Acuiti findings indicate instead is a gradual erosion of the assumption that FX must always sit apart.