Stephanie Farrell is Head of Integrated Trading Solutions, North America, at Northern Trust.
What were the key theme(s) for your business in 2025?
We saw further adoption of outsourced trading arrangements in 2025, extending to support the trade lifecycle through securities execution, trade settlement, and foreign exchange. Investment managers moved beyond cost reduction toward execution quality, leveraging specialist desks, workflow automation, and data analytics to drive transparency and performance. The conversation evolved from “why outsource?” to “how do we optimize performance and governance?”
What was the highlight of 2025?
Northern Trust achieved a major milestone with 115+ outsourced trading clients in 2025, reinforcing confidence in our model. On the Integrated Trading Solutions desk, fixed income scaled rapidly as electronification and dealer connectivity expanded, enabling clients to enter credit and rates markets without rebuilding internal infrastructure.
What surprised you in 2025?
Two developments stood out:
- Workflow AI adoption accelerated from pilot projects to daily tools, streamlining market prep and post-trade analytics.
- Outsourcing engagement broadened to include multi-asset and complex exposures, requiring coordination across swaps, FX, and hedges while maintaining best-execution controls. Outsourcing is now as much about operating-model enablement as execution capacity.
What are your clients’ pain points and how have they changed from one year ago?
Today, clients demand proof of outcome: consistent execution quality, transparent broker selection, integrated analytics, and audit-ready evidence. They also seek help with cross-asset onboarding—from connectivity to control testing—delivered without manual friction. The shift from price to performance, control, and speed-to-market is the defining change.
