Rates markets had already undergone substantial structural changes in the decade before the pandemic, especially around the proliferation of electronic trading and due to continued regulatory change. This accelerated during the Covid crisis, putting immense pressure on technology budgets and operations of major sell-side providers. Celent wanted to hear firsthand how head traders utilize technology to address these market structural changes and what has changed post-pandemic. To facilitate this, we interviewed heads of rates trading from multiple sell-side institutions of varying sizes. We also utilized a broader Celent survey of traders executed in 2020, “Transforming Trading in a Converging World,” to compare now and pre-Covid.

We have combined the survey and interview data with our analysts' sector market expertise around markets technology to provide proprietary insights into current and future developments in the rates trading market structure and technology stack.