Key Findings
Liquidity Is Improving, Discovery Is Not Solved
A significant 58% of leaders say fixed income liquidity has improved over the past two years. Yet difficulty identifying the best source of liquidity remains the leading execution challenge , with many prioritising better discovery tools. Fragmentation continues to complicate how liquidity is found and accessed.
Data Capabilities Top the 2030 Agenda
Better data capabilities (integration, reference data, lifecycle data and traceability) lead for building a high-performing fixed income trading desk by 2030, selected by 63%. Its position well ahead of AI-enabled workflows (4%) highlights leaders' focus on strengthening the infrastructure behind future trading capabilities.
AI Ambition Meets a Data Reality
Leaders see significant AI potential across risk management (47%), liquidity discovery (43%) and execution optimisation (41%). However, poor data quality is an obstacle to wider adoption, along with data sources. The ability to realise AI’s potential will depend heavily on stronger data foundations.
Macro Uncertainty Drives Portfolio Trading
Interrelated macro forces – interest rate policy, geopolitics, inflation, currency volatility, and fiscal policy – continue moving markets and strategies. The need for portfolios to shift more often and more quickly in this environment is adding the expansion of portfolio trading, the structural trend that will impact fixed income markets the most by 2030.
say data capabilities will define the desk of 2030
Tokenisation Will Change the Plumbing First
Tokenisation ranks second among the trends expected to reshape fixed income by 2030, selected by 37%. Yet fewer than one in ten name it as the technology that will most change trading. With the ECB's Pontes now settling tokenised assets in central bank money, its first impact is likely to be on settlement, not execution.
