CEO Nick Solinger discusses FIA Tech’s role in revolutionising ETD operations and automating increasingly complex processes across the post-trade lifecycle.
1. In no more than 50 words, please describe your core service offering and how it uniquely addresses the current needs of US hedge fund managers.
Trade Data Network (TDN) is a real-time post-trade network built on a shared ledger connecting buyside clients, executing brokers, clearing brokers and CCPs for T+0 trade management. It allows clients a consistent workflow for monitoring and managing post trade events from execution, allocation and confirmation of clearing, including fees and commissions. With integrated exception management and workflow, it provides clients with a superior operational workflow for ETD and US listed options.
2. What three key differentiators of your business and service suite have most contributed to your success in the North American market?
1. Industry-wide connectivity: TDN brings together the key participants in the ETD post- trade lifecycle—investment managers, executing brokers, clearing brokers and CCPs—on a single network. This connectivity addresses the fragmentation that has historically made post-trade processing inefficient.
2. A shared source of trade data: Rather than relying on multiple bilateral communications and competing versions of trade information, TDN creates a shared, permissioned view of the trade. This provides greater transparency and helps firms identify and rectify trade breaks earlier.
3. Deep ETD expertise combined with intelligent automation: As FIA Tech is the industry’s go-to source for symbology, exchange fees, commissions and product reference data, TDN integrates those elements to deliver unmatched insights to highlight risks, resolve breaks and manage fees. TDN’s matching, exception management, fee and commission, reconciliation and lifecycle capabilities eliminate false breaks, allowing operations teams to see their risk in real-time.
3. Which market developments or regulatory shifts do you anticipate will most significantly impact your service delivery model in the coming year?
Futures as an asset class continues to grow with a steady shift from OTC to exchange traded and significant market volatility. In addition, more hedge funds are trading futures on physical commodities, which itself brings additional risks. This makes automation and operational resilience in post-trade processing critical for hedge funds today.At the same time, firms are under growing pressure to demonstrate stronger controls around trade breaks, fees, positions and lifecycle events from investors. This will increase demand for technologies that can provide real-time transparency, automated exception management and a reliable, shared view of post-trade information.
4. What strategic initiatives is your firm implementing to address these expected changes?
FIA Tech has established itself as the market best in T+0 post trade allocation and matching, and we continue to invest in functionality to grow the value to our client base on TDN.
Our priorities include:
Collaboration: We’ve introduced workflow for operations teams to manage breaks with counterparties, and over 2027 we will be adding direct integration into exception management systems at FCMs and brokers in addition to the Operations dashboard in the TDN UI.
Intelligent, Digital Break Resolution: Our goal is to identify the most common trade break scenarios and build intelligent workflows to task the originator of the break with the resolution. The first workflow is FeeCompare – TDN performs a 4-way recon of the fees and commissions – Client, Clearing Broker, Executing Broker and our independent calculation using each party’s data to identify the root cause of the trade break and task that party with resolution. We’ve seen T+0 fee & commission breaks reduced by over 50% already with clients.
Lifecycle Intelligence: TDN expanded this year to include the results of key lifecycle events such as option expiry, exercise, delivery and position transfers. Our TDN Working Group is now turning its attention to defining an industry standard means for instructing lifecycle events across clearing firms to reduce the risk in these critical instructions, which we expect to launch in early 2027.
5. How have your services specifically helped hedge fund clients navigate operational complexities and market challenges throughout 2026 ?
Throughout 2026, TDN clients have realized T+0 match rates of 99.83% vs an industry wide average of 2-3% of trades being booked incorrectly or late. From an operational scalability point of view, this high degree of straight through processing achieved for clients has helped hedge fund clients weather the unprecedented volatility in the markets over the past year – high volume days such as the Iran war outbreak were handled as if they were routine days in the operations team.
Key to deliver this operational scalability, TDN gives firms greater visibility into where a trade is in the post-trade process and where discrepancies exist. Its exception management capabilities enable firms to identify, prioritize and collaborate on breaks, including prioritizing issues according to clearing deadlines and ageing.
TDN also supports greater transparency around fees and commissions, helping clients compare expected costs with reported data and investigate discrepancies.
The result is a more proactive and resilient operating model, helping hedge funds reduce manual intervention, improve operational controls and resolve issues earlier in the trade lifecycle.
One of the most significant enhancements we have made has been T-0 Fee Compare, which extends TDN's capabilities into automated fees and commissions comparison.
Fee Compare independently calculates expected fees and commissions using FIA Tech's trusted reference data—including brokerage rates, exchange and clearing fees and clearing commissions—and compares these calculations against client and clearing broker data.
This gives hedge funds a more transparent and independent way to identify fee breaks and investigate discrepancies.
More broadly, Fee Compare demonstrates the evolution of TDN beyond trade matching: using a shared, trusted data foundation to automate increasingly complex post-trade processes and give firms greater control over their ETD operations.
