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Client story

Xceptor delivers 97% reduction in reconciliation time for MarketAxess

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About 

  • MarketAxess operates a leading electronic trading platform across the global fixed-income markets.  
  • Founded in 2000, leveraged by over 2,000 firms worldwide.  
  • Connects a robust network of market participants across the full trading lifecycle.  

Story Snapshot

  • arrow-puple SaaS deployment handled 15+ million rows of data effortlessly.
  • arrow-puple Cloud environment spun up in just 30 minutes.
  • arrow-puple Reconciliation time reduced from 1 day to just 15 minutes.
  • arrow-puple Eliminated the need to log tickets or wait for vendor support, meaning internal teams can now build and test reconciliation rules independently.

Challenge 

As a leading electronic trading platform for fixed-income securities, MarketAxess is at the forefront of transforming how the global fixed-income markets operate through its innovative trading, market data, post-trade, and technology services.  

From an internal perspective, MarketAxess had previously relied on manual workflows and Excel spreadsheets to manage its reconciliation processes. Running a single reconciliation could be a lengthy process; gathering data from various sources, formatting it in Excel, and manually processing it. The sheer volume of data MarketAxess was working with – sometimes reaching up to 15 million rows – required a more efficient way of working. 

The reconciliation software provider MarketAxess used prior to Xceptor offered them limited flexibility. Any changes to reconciliation logic had to be configured via the vendor, requiring tickets to be logged and requests placed in a queue. This had the potential to slow down operations, create bottlenecks, and often meant manual workarounds were needed until the fix was implemented.

Choosing Xceptor

After re-evaluating the market, MarketAxess selected Xceptor as their choice of vendor for its ability to handle three-way reconciliations, support multiple reconciliation types in a single platform, and automatically ingest any data, from any source, eliminating the need for manual data processing – giving internal teams greater control and visibility.

The platform’s scalability meant that even the most data-intensive reconciliations could be handled with ease. With Xceptor, the speed of reconciliation processes improved by 97% with the largest reconciliations – including 15 million rows of data – now completed in just 15 minutes, with the potential for an even shorter timeframe for smaller reconciliations. This reduction in processing time enabled MarketAxess to run reconciliations more frequently, accelerating decision-making time, potentially reducing risk, and enabling them to meet their requirements with confidence.

Aside from having the ability to quickly and accurately process reconciliations, Xceptor provides MarketAxess’ teams with the ability to build, test, and deploy reconciliation rules on their own terms. No more waiting on vendors to make changes. No more uncertainty about project timelines.

Xceptor has provided real value and driven genuine change within our department. The reduction in processing time, combined with the autonomy Xceptor provides our teams, has transformed the way we work. Xceptor’s ability to handle three-way reconciliations, support multiple reconciliation types on a single platform coupled with the scalability of the platform has been a huge differentiator for our teams. We’re able to manage even the most complex reconciliations with ease

Robert Scott
Senior Change Management Associate
A market leader in confirmations processing, Xceptor is trusted by some of the largest global financial institutions.

Scaling smarter with the cloud 

Leveraging Xceptor’s SaaS offering has been another advantage for MarketAxess. Deployed in just 30 minutes – significantly quicker than the week-long setups offered by competitors – it provides continuous, automatic updates that ensure the platform and its users always have access to the latest features and capabilities without time-consuming upgrade processes.

The Xceptor SaaS model eliminates the need for manual upgrades, reduces operational overhead, and allows teams to focus on delivering value through increased productivity and efficiency. MarketAxess and its clients benefit from access to the latest features and improved efficiency, supporting greater agility, productivity, and long-term scalability for the organisation.

Improved visibility and elimination of silos

Using Xceptor, MarketAxess now has access to:

  • arrow-puple Real-time dashboards that provide instant access to reconciliation performance, exception handling, and audit trails. Managers no longer need to rely on manual reports or chase down data across systems.
  • arrow-puple The platform’s centralised data model to ensure all teams are working from a single source of truth, reducing duplication and improving collaboration.
  • arrow-puple Fully integrated audit capabilities providing leadership with immediate access to historical data and reconciliation results – something that would previously take hours or even days to compile.

Powering the partnership further  

 Following the success of Xceptor Reconciliations within the operations team, MarketAxess has expanded use of the product to the compliance team, as well as exploring new use cases for onboarding and post-trade across the broader areas of the business. 

We’ve seen significant benefits since deploying Xceptor and are expanding the reconciliations products to our compliance team, and are excited to explore how we can potentially integrate and deploy other Xceptor products across the organisation.

Robert Scott,
Senior Change Management Associate

Life with Xceptor

Improved operational efficiency & faster time to value

Improved operational efficiency & faster time to value

Large reconciliations are now completed 97% quicker, in as little as 15 minutes – saving time and reducing errors. 

Effortless scalability

Effortless scalability

Cloud environment deployed in just 30 minutes compared to one week with competitors. 

Rapid processing at scale

Rapid processing at scale

Xceptor seamlessly handles 15+ million row reconciliations with no performance issues. 

Empowered teams

Empowered teams

Users can now build, test, and deploy reconciliation logic independently, with minimal reliance on support. 

Greater visibility

Greater visibility

Through unified data access, all data is stored in a single, accessible format and location, improving visibility and collaboration. 

Enhanced auditability & compliance

Enhanced auditability & compliance

SaaS model ensures automatic updates, keeping the platform aligned with internal security policies and external regulations. Centralised audit trails simplify tracking and regulatory response. 

MarketAxess

MarketAxess operates a leading electronic trading platform that delivers greater trading efficiency, a diversified pool of liquidity and significant cost savings to institutional investors and broker-dealers across the global fixed-income markets. 

Over 2,000 firms leverage MarketAxess’ patented technology to efficiently trade fixed-income securities. MarketAxess’ award-winning Open Trading® marketplace is widely regarded as the preferred all-to-all trading solution in the global credit markets. 

Founded in 2000, MarketAxess connects a robust network of market participants through the full trading lifecycle, including automated trading solutions, intelligent data products and a range of post-trade services.