Blockchain, digital assets, client experience and strategic partnerships were prominent themes for the capital markets industry in February. These trends will continue to be a driving force when capital markets organizations are determining their strategies and operations for the rest of 2025 and beyond. Below we take a look at each of these areas.
Blockchain and digital assets
A leading futures exchange announced it will launch a product in the digital assets space in March. The exchange aims to meet the demand of investors for cryptocurrency derivatives, which points not only to growing demand for digital assets, but also investor acceptance of cryptocurrencies. This innovation will increase the exchange’s market share for cryptocurrency derivatives and also sets a precedent for other exchanges and broker-dealers to follow.
To further demonstrate the movement toward investor and industry acceptance of cryptocurrency, the SEC Crypto Task Force met with various digital asset organizations last month to discuss potential regulations.
Client experience
Nasdaq announced that it plans to upgrade its trading platform to make the user interface more user-friendly and efficient, to enhance the customer experience. Through these improvements, Nasdaq aims to increase customer satisfaction, and in turn, client retention. Organizations throughout the capital markets space are looking to deploy more user-centric platforms. Nasdaq’s focus on the end user will encourage other organizations to prioritize client interface and customer experience upon determining technology strategic objectives.
Strategic partnerships
LPL Financial announced a strategic partnership with a leading provider of software for financial services companies. Through this partnership, LPL Financial will be able to streamline its back- and middle-office processing of alternative investments, allowing the organization to onboard and transfer more alternative investment positions to their custody.
The partnership, which should improve the accuracy in alternative investment customer reporting, is one of the latest to show prioritization of the client experience. The change will allow LPL customers to make more informed investment decisions and positions LPL as a full-service provider.
Read more of RSM’s insights on the financial services industry.
In another partnership announcement, a leading futures exchange and a centralized clearing organization teamed up to expand an existing cross-margining partnership to end users. Once approved, this strategic partnership allows for eligible clients to benefit from margin offsets when positions are held both in interest rate futures and U.S. treasury securities. This partnership is important not only as it encourages centralized treasury clearing, which will reduce systemic risk, but also since it enables investors to deploy capital more efficiently because they can allocate less capital to satisfy margin requirements. This enhanced cross-margining agreement is expected to be made available to eligible end-users by December and is pending regulatory approval.
The takeaway
The capital markets industry is continuing to evolve, as shown by advancements in cryptocurrency, blockchain, and digital assets, client experience, and strategic partnerships. These initiatives are not only shaping exchange, broker-dealer, and clearinghouse operations and strategies, but are also setting standards and precedents for the entirety of the broader financial services industry.
