The Future of Fixed Income Will Be Defined By Trust in Data
By Swati Bhatia, Head of Fixed Income
The results of this year's FILS Europe survey provide a valuable perspective on the forces shaping fixed income markets. While artificial intelligence, automation and digital transformation continue to dominate industry discussions, the findings point to a more fundamental issue underpinning them all: trust in data.
One of the most encouraging findings is that liquidity conditions are improving. More than half of respondents reported that liquidity has improved over the past two years. However, the industry's challenge is no longer simply access to liquidity, it is the ability to discover, evaluate and act on it effectively across increasingly fragmented markets. Difficulty identifying the best source of liquidity was cited as the leading execution challenge, while 59% identified better liquidity discovery tools as the initiative most likely to improve performance.
What is particularly striking is how closely respondents linked execution outcomes to data quality. More than half identified data quality and consistency as a significant challenge to execution. This reflects an important shift in industry thinking. Market participants increasingly recognise that successful execution is not solely about accessing liquidity. It is about having the information needed to identify opportunities, assess risk and make decisions with confidence.
At SIX, this is a trend we have been actively investing behind. We believe confidence in execution begins with confidence in the underlying data. Our focus is not simply on expanding coverage, but on improving transparency, consistency and trust across the fixed income lifecycle. This includes strengthening the links between security reference data, issuer documentation, lifecycle events, corporate actions and pricing information to provide a more complete and connected view of an instrument throughout its life.
This also aligns with the survey findings on the growing importance of connectivity, where respondents ranked data integration ahead of liquidity access, reference data and automation as the most important capability required for future trading desks. Increasingly, firms are seeking a connected view of an instrument and want to understand how a bond was issued, how its characteristics evolve, how lifecycle events affect it and how those changes influence valuation, risk and investment decisions.
The survey findings around AI reinforce this point. Respondents identified significant opportunities for AI across risk management, liquidity discovery and execution optimisation. Yet they were equally clear about the obstacles. Poor data quality, fragmented data sources and integration challenges remain the most significant barriers to wider adoption. When asked what must be solved before AI can deliver meaningful value, respondents again pointed to data quality, fragmentation, standardisation and integration.
Perhaps the most telling statistic in the survey is that better data integration was identified as the most important capability for building a high-performing fixed income trading desk by 2030, selected by 33% of respondents. In comparison, only 4% selected AI-enabled workflows. This is a powerful signal that the industry's immediate priority is not AI in isolation, but the infrastructure required to make it dependable and scalable.
The findings also highlight a commercial reality. While firms see enormous potential in AI, many still struggle to demonstrate measurable returns. More than four in ten respondents cited proving ROI as a challenge to wider AI adoption. The issue is not simply the technology itself. Organisations will find it difficult to realise value from AI if the information and data feeding those capabilities remains incomplete, inconsistent or dispersed across multiple systems.
These findings suggest that the conversation is evolving from data quantity to data trust and traceability. For SIX, an essential component of trust is provenance: the ability to trace critical information back to authoritative sources and understand how it evolves throughout the lifecycle of a bond. As firms increase automation and adopt AI at scale, confidence in the output increasingly depends on confidence in the origin, quality and transparency of the underlying data.
Provenance means more than simply providing data. It means providing the ability to verify information, understand how it was derived and maintain transparency as that information changes over time. Whether supporting investment decisions, regulatory requirements or operational processes, trusted data increasingly depends on knowing where it came from and how it can be validated.
Recognising this shift, at SIX, we continue to invest in bringing together source documentation, reference data, corporate actions, credit events and pricing intelligence to enable customers to solve for these challenges.
The survey ultimately sends a clear message. The future leaders in fixed income will not be defined solely by their ability to adopt new technologies. They will be defined by their ability to establish trusted, connected and explainable data foundations that allow those technologies to deliver meaningful business value.
Whether the objective is improving execution, enhancing liquidity discovery, strengthening risk management or scaling AI adoption, success will increasingly depend on the quality, transparency and trustworthiness of the underlying data.
