Order Management Systems Take Centre Stage

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Byline: Heather McKenzie

The fewer people who have to key in trade information, the fewer opportunities for error. That is the basic principle driving the adoption of order management systems (OMSs) at investment banks. The increased automation of the trading lifecycle and the quest for straight-through processing (STP) in the past few years have made these systems much more attractive to financial firms.

They have evolved from basic trade creation and management workflow to encompass myriad functions such as execution, order routeing, confirmation, accounting, allocation and network connectivity.

Fritz McCormick, analyst at US firm Celent Communications and author of the report Ranking the Vendors of Sell-Side Order Management Systems, says: 'The OMS is being seen as the new pivot point for internal and external STP.'

John Wilson, director at CityIQ, a London securities industry consultancy, says the establishment of central dealing desks by investment banks has led to increased use of order management systems.

'Once that central environment was established, it became much easier to introduce an OMS,' Wilson says.

The basic purpose of an OMS is to enable order capture at …