Magnus Haglind is Head of Products for Marketplace Technology at Nasdaq.

What were the key theme(s) for your business in 2024?

2024 has been an incredible year at Nasdaq, establishing our Financial Technology business which saw the integration of our Marketplace Technology, Surveillance, and Anti-Financial Crime Technology with the market-leading platforms Calypso and AxiomSL following our acquisition of Adenza. That comprehensive portfolio of mission-critical solutions offers a unique vantage point on major themes across the financial ecosystem as our clients look to solve their toughest operational challenges.

They are seeking solutions that help them reduce the burden of ever greater regulation and supervisory oversight, while optimizing for liquidity and capital. Underlying that is a widespread need to simplify inherent complexity within their businesses to break down internal silos. They are also increasingly looking to partners like Nasdaq to help keep pace with innovative new technologies and the forces of disruption.

On the market infrastructure side, there is an almost overwhelming realization across exchanges, clearing houses and central securities depositories of the need to modernize their underlying architecture, or risk being left behind as innovative new technologies begin to define the new generation of capital markets.

What was the highlight of your year?

In May, we convened more than 100 industry leaders within our Financial Technology client community, discussing a range of topics across market infrastructure, AI, regulation, and innovation. It was fascinating to listen and share emerging insights, and tremendous value to bring our network together.

Modernization was a critical thread through these discussions, not just in terms of making sure operators have the right applications, but more fundamentally about how they ensure they have the right operating model in place. Innovative technologies like cloud and AI are driving meaningful conversations about the critical capabilities they will need in the future, and whether they should source those in-house, or from external providers.

Given the excitement and realisation of the importance of gen-AI, operators are rightly asking themselves: “How do I ensure I have access to those capabilities”. With the level of energy and compute capacity that will be required – and the investment they will need to make in their own infrastructure to even stay relevant – they want to make sure they aren’t left alone to source everything themselves.

What are your expectations for 2025?

In line with the much broader market modernization theme, the pace at which Gen-AI has matured across the industry over the past year bodes reflects a strong trend that will only continue to gain momentum. From a Nasdaq perspective there are already multiple examples of AI being embedded into our platforms, including the first AI-powered order type, dramatically improving the efficiency of bank risk calculations and market surveillance.

The momentum behind crypto and digital asset markets is also helping to drive greater focus on tokenization of asset classes, alongside a greater push towards 24×5/7 markets. Nasdaq’s trading technology has long been used to support 24/7 trading in digital asset markets and we’re seeing increased appetite to expand this service across a broader range of asset classes.

What will the industry look like in 20 years’ time?

The next generation of global capital markets will be characterized by a fabric of globally connected markets, with common data lake architecture, the ability to interact seamlessly across exchanges, minimal latency, and the flexibility to incorporate new products and functionality.

The question then becomes about how we get there. This type of modernization goes beyond a point in time, but rather a process of continual change. Operators that haven’t already embarked on that modernization journey – investing in their data strategy and reflecting on their long-term operating model – risk being left behind. We’re excited to play a leading role in that transition as the backbone of many institutions’ tech stack.