Lynn Martin (pictured), President of Fixed Income and Data Services at ICE, says that the firm’s offering in the ETF space is a full end-to-end solution, from the listing services on the New York Stock Exchange, to the technology and data offerings of ICE Data Services, to the very liquid futures market which helps market participants to manage risk.
“We provide customers with a flexible data driven solution which allows them to more precisely manage their exposure. This includes everything from customising indices designed to meet targeted strategies to simply providing them with data to self-index. That allows issuers to develop investment products in a very bespoke and curated fashion.” Martin says.
“Additionally, and as it pertains to the ETF primary market, the technology solution that we’ve created with ICE ETF Hub makes the creation and redemption process significantly more efficient. Despite the volatility in the market, our create/redeem volume has just surpassed USD1 trillion in less than two years since launch.”
Martin believes that the flexibility of the ICE solution lies behind why the firm won these awards. “The flexibility of our offerings is resonating with issuers as this industry continues to evolve. In addition, the scale and breadth of indices and services around those indices allows customers to better manage risk. For example, in fixed income, we are the first vendor to offer real time publication of broad credit indices.”
She also believes that some of the technology that ICE has provided to ETF issuers, including index customisation and back testing tools, helps them stress-test investment strategies as they develop their investment products. This means issuers can bring their products to market in a much more efficient fashion.
“On the equity side, we have won some notable transition business in thematic ETFs because of our ability to adapt our index methodologies to meet issuer needs – we take a holistic look at the needs of our customers and collaborate with them,” Martin says.
Ongoing trends this year include a continued drive to customisation in the index space, she notes. “There is more money coming into ETFs, fixed income in particular, and we are seeing more interest from issuers to provide customised products within and across asset classes in order to more precisely target desired exposures and managed associated risks. Additionally, a big trend we’re seeing is the inclusion of factors targeting emerging risks, such as ESG factors, on top of existing benchmarks.”
Key strengths for the firm as a data vendor are the overall breadth and depth of underlying security and alternate datasets that ICE offers to its customers. This means that they can offer traditional benchmarks, as well as benchmarks that leverage these alternate datasets, along with robust analytics and other supporting services. The offering extends to thematic ETFs as well, which is an area of growth for the overall ETF industry.
In the index offering, Martin says that ICE has extensive breadth and coverage of underlying data as well as a strong footprint across all asset classes, which enables them to tailor their offering and offer a customised service.
Best ETF Data Vendor | Best Index Provider – Equity ETFs
