Iress’ hub offers big refresh of ‘outdated’ FIX trading tech

Wealthtech developer Iress has debuted a new cloud-native FIX trading hub which it says will push Australian partner trading firms to “the forefront of global markets”.

Dubbed ‘FIX Hub’, Iress boasts that its middleware solution, which connects buy-side, sell-side and trading venues across global markets, will enable its trading firm partners in Australia to expand their investment opportunities across all major asset classes and multiple message interfaces.

FIX, or the Financial Information eXchange, refers to an electronic communications protocol used between investment banks and broker-dealers to exchange securities price and trade data, in real-time and across borders.

Jason Hoang, Iress’ chief executive of trading and market data, recognised that FIX services in Australia have “historically been run on outdated technology with a complex web of point-to-point connections that slow everything down”.

Consequently, he said, “many trading firms rely on a range of technology partners, instead of finding real efficiency with one provider who can do it all”.

“With Iress’ FIX Hub, we’re innovating our trading software by introducing trading infrastructure that provides frictionless onboarding, low-touch workflow, interoperability and resilience,” Hoang said.

“We’ve been able to use the foundations of our expertise in providing FIX solutions around the globe to reimagine a cloud-native FIX Hub in Australia that is faster, more reliable and better connected, so Australian trading firms can stay at the forefront of global markets.”

In addition to global connectivity, Iress said that its FIX Hub solution provides buy-side and sell-side clients with instant access for FIX onboarding, built-in capability for monitoring and security, access to daily reconciliation and validation, and ongoing diagnostics to reduce the risk of outages and downtime.

On the tech infrastructure front, Iress said the new hub “dramatically reduces testing, reconciliation and deployment overheads, point-to-point connections and IT footprints across message protocols”.

Among the first firms to begin onboarding on FIX Hub is 26 Degrees Global Markets, a Sydney-based multi-asset prime broker.

26 Degrees’ chief commercial officer James Alexander praised the platform for delivering “improved time to market, frictionless session deployment and increased resilience, affording our clients a simple and robust integration to our services”.

Iress said it will continue to evolve FIX Hub’s capabilities through 2024, including the addition of machine learning-based insights to help improve trading and investing decisions.

The wealthtech also said it would look to expand FIX Hub to the Asian market.