Northern Trust Sees Demand for Outsourced FI Trading

Northern Trust says its outsourced trading business, Integrated Trading Solutions (ITS) has seen strong growth across fixed income products over the past year, reinforcing strong demand over a longer period.

The bank says the ITS client base increased by nearly 17% from year-end 2023 to the end of the first quarter, 2025, during which period, it extended the service to Asia-Pacific. Notwithstanding that, the bank says the growth has been driven by an increase in demand for fixed income outsourced trading as well as asset managers looking to reduce costs in a challenging market environment. It adds that the growth has been driven by different client profiles – ranging from traditional asset managers to hedge funds, public and corporate treasurers, and other asset owners.

Northern Trust says ITS fixed income trading volume quadrupled in the last three years in the US while doubling in EMEA as clients looked to add exposure across investment grade and high yield credit, US Treasuries, developed rates and emerging market debt, municipals, money markets, asset-backed and securitised products. It launched in Asia-Pacific in September 2024.