Two weeks have passed since we announced that Nasdaq’s acquisition of Cinnober Financial Technology is complete and Cinnober is joining forces with Nasdaq’s Market Technology business. We truly believe that our clients will benefit from an even stronger technology partner that is forming out of deep technological know-how, the vast intellectual capital of our people and a drive to shape tomorrow’s markets both with the promise of leveraging new technologies and the commitment to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of what we offer today.

Lars Ottersgård, EVP & Head of Market Technology at @Nasdaq, and Peter Lenardos, CEO of @Cinnober, share the vision for the new technology partnership. https://t.co/uBGlG98h5Q pic.twitter.com/vy8wzZrXhh

— Nasdaq (@Nasdaq) January 28, 2019

It is no secret that exchanges, CCPs, CSDs and market participants today face an enormous amount of pressure – on margins, business models and aging technology; and, from agile competitors and stringent regulatory authorities. Indeed, Celent’s 2018 Market Infrastructure CIO report stated that the biggest hurdles to change in our ecosystem include (1) scarcity of skilled resources, (2) lack of standards and information sharing and (3) an incumbent mentality that stunts business evolution. While dealing with these pressures and barriers to change, Market Infrastructure Operators (MIO) are still very much focusing spending on core transformation and legacy modernization, but also new technology adoption. Our team is perfectly positioned to meet these needs and emerging technology requirements, while also reducing and removing barriers that constrain advancement.

Under the Nasdaq umbrella and with the full support of our organization behind us, we will continue to focus on helping MIOs successfully achieve their modernization and business transformation initiatives, which we believe will greatly reduce pressure on our customers and the MIO community at large. We have established the largest and most experienced pool of market infrastructure technology resources on the planet and moving forward, we will work together to tackle the industry’s challenges at speed and scale. As one team, we will help our clients grasp unique opportunities and stay relevant by enabling them to be agile and flexible to address change head-on. We will act as a bridge between market constituencies that will fuel greater collaboration and bolster information sharing and standards creation. Lastly, we are committed to furthering innovation and usage of new technologies as a major R&D hub for MIOs, everywhere.

Both Nasdaq and Cinnober have focused on bringing together marketplaces, post-trade organizations, market participants and regulators to share best practices across the trade lifecycle. As we bring Cinnober into the Nasdaq family and build the next generation of our business, we are confident that we will be able to enrich our already deep global perspectives to unify the MIO voice, establish standards that will drive our industry into the next decade.

As we move through our integration, our goals are simple and clear:

• Deliver superior service without disruption, taking all customers with us on our journey to improve and enhance our product offerings.
• Advance innovation initiatives and re-investment in our product portfolio, including new technologies.
• Accelerate opportunities for MIOs, everywhere.
• Drive markets forward.

We look forward to what the future holds.

Lars Ottersgård
EVP & Head of Market Technology, Nasdaq

Peter Lenardos
CEO, Cinnober Financial Technology