Outlook 2016: Michael Friedman, Trillium

Michael Friedman is General Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer at Trillium.

What were the major themes of your business in 2015?

Michael Friedman, Trillium

This year was the year that banks finally gave up on the idea that a single platform could handle all of their compliance needs. As former SEC Commissioner Daniel Gallagher made clear in his “crazy quilt” chart, there’s just too much ground to cover. The only answer is to pick the best tool for each job, and if that means a few more different vendors, so be it. This change meant more opportunities for smaller more agile firms like ours.

What are your expectations for 2016?
I’m keeping an eye on the forthcoming new SEC rules for order-routing disclosures for institutional customers. The buy side has been asking for more data from the sell side, and in 2016 they will finally get it. We are planning some new offerings to help the buy side make sense of that new data when it arrives.