EquiLend

Management Insight

New Year, Continued Innovation

Brian Lamb

Feb 2021

2020 was a year of extraordinary challenges. This new year will no doubt be a time of change, but one that I believe will abound with new opportunities. 

Reflecting on a challenging year

Last year was an agility test for our industry, and all others. I am so proud of my team’s tireless work in ensuring the continuity and security of clients’ businesses throughout this global crisis. EquiLend, and the industry at large, came out strong amid a tough year. Our Next Generation Trading (NGT) platform experienced record trading levels representing a year-over-year increase of 25% in trade volume. While overall securities finance revenue decreased 11.6% last year, several individual stocks and broader themes have indicated avenues of opportunity. Our DataLend team is producing the market intelligence our clients need to understand and navigate these trends.

EquiLend’s 20th anniversary

This year, EquiLend celebrates its 20th anniversary as a firm. I am so proud of this milestone and all we have accomplished as a team. As we reflect on our two decades of innovation, we remain dedicated to building on this momentum. 

Over the past two decades, EquiLend has fundamentally changed the securities finance industry. Today, we are integral to its function. Sixty percent of global securities finance transactions take place on our NGT platform, which processes more than $100 billion of executed transactions daily. EquiLend was founded and built on innovation, and our 20-year anniversary propels us into another decade of consistently moving the needle. 

And we aren’t just limited to trading – we support our clients and the industry throughout the full lifecycle of securities finance. Our team is focused on extending our fully autonomous network of AI and machine learning capabilities far beyond where we’ve gotten today. What people need and demand is more autonomy to continue managing their businesses in the distributed environment that we live in today. We won’t stop at the traditional prime broker + agent lender structure. EquiLend is supporting all players: hedge funds, central banks and the largest asset managers and sovereign wealth funds in the world. 

As we continue to invest in our product suite and strengthen our collaborations, such as our partnership with Stonewain on EquiLend Spire, we plan to expand our capacity and extend our network in the coming months and years.

My outlook for 2021

In 2021, I believe the pace of technical innovation in the securities finance industry will accelerate immeasurably. Because it needs to. It’s no secret that there is ample opportunity for streamlining inefficiencies across the trade lifecycle. In many cases, any improvement would be revolutionary. However, innovation must be in tune with the industry’s needs, not innovation for innovation’s sake. We can no longer rely on the “if we build it, they will come” mentality. At EquiLend, we’ve already put this into practice. We interviewed 50+ trading desks around the world to understand how we could make NGT work better for them. Their feedback prompted our 3 phases of enhancements to the platform, which address the key requests we heard from our assessment. 

This past year was also a time of historical social and political disruption, and the growing discourse on pervasive racial inequities reaffirmed a commitment to making real change. We’re done just talking about it. It’s time to act on our words. Diversity and inclusion initiatives will remain a key priority in the new year, as they should, and we look forward to announcing new plans soon. ESG, once a buzzword, has moved into the mainstream for many investors this past year. I think it will become an even bigger deal in 2021, as changes in investment philosophies continue to head in one direction. EquiLend is committed to creating solutions that empower our clients to embrace these strategies.

At the onset of this new year, the entire world sits in a historic place. We can feel the eyes of posterity on us already. I view innovation as the force that will move us forward. EquiLend is dedicated to leading our clients and the industry through this period of uncertainty. With growing signs of vaccination progress, we hope to see you on the other side of this very soon!

Stay safe, all! 

Who We Are

EquiLend is a global financial technology, data and analytics firm offering Trading, Post-Trade, Data & Analytics, RegTech and Securities Finance Platform Solutions for the securities finance industry. EquiLend has offices in New York, New Jersey, Boston, Toronto, London, Dublin, India, Hong Kong and Tokyo and is regulated in jurisdictions around the globe.