What have you observed in the SBL market over the past five years?
Bob Zekraus: A lot has changed. Like many areas of financial services, securities borrowing and lending (SBL) is constantly evolving in response to market cycles and external pressures. Over the past five years, the SBL space has grown significantly — becoming more competitive, complex, and expansive. According to third-party data providers, lendable inventory has reached over US$40 trillion, while on-loan balances sit around US$3 trillion. Both figures have nearly doubled in that time, driven by shifts in both supply and demand.
Since the onset of the pandemic and amid today’s volatile macroeconomic environment, SBL and prime brokerage have grown into systemically important business lines within banks’ capital markets and securities services divisions. Meeting clients’ growing needs for equity and fixed income financing, securing stable funding, seizing market opportunities, and optimising financial resource management have become critical differentiators.
Firms with better visibility, advanced automation, smart workflow solutions, and integrated data and trade lifecycle processing are scaling more effectively. Prime brokers and securities lenders — key liquidity providers — are using more tools and technologies to analyse, source, price, negotiate, and trade with a broader range of counterparties.
At the same time, GLMX has made strategic strides to expand support for all types of securities financing transactions, including SBL, and short-term funding markets. These efforts have helped meet the evolving needs of market participants — something I saw firsthand and a major reason why joining the team last year was an easy decision.
Dan Long: What I have observed over the past five years is an increased willingness by market participants to engage with, and embrace new technology. In the past, trading technology was not always a priority, neither from a resourcing nor a funding standpoint. However, the importance of system resiliency, reducing fails and errors, and efficient market engagement has changed the dynamic. There is now an eagerness from all sides of the market to seek out and integrate with new technology solutions.
The market is more competitive than ever today — market participants now need to be assertive in every way possible. That means accessing new pools of liquidity and engaging across the market with the best protocols available.
What challenges are market participants looking to solve with technology today?
Long: From the perspective of the lender side, efficiency is the key. On a daily basis, lenders must share availability, respond to inquiries, update lending rates, manage recalls, and execute at the best level, all while keeping up with market events. To manage this and obtain the best result for the client, lenders are turning to technology solutions. They are looking to support the large volumes of automated general collateral (GC) trading, as well as manage requests and negotiations on hard-to-borrow securities, all in one place.
Error reduction is just as important. Many firms still rely on outdated infrastructure and manual processes, leading to inefficiencies, errors, and penalties. Across securities finance, firms are prioritising solutions that deliver automation, straight-through processing (STP), and API-driven integrations to reduce friction. We often hear clients looking for a single execution platform and ‘single source of truth’ to reduce settlement fails, and therefore penalties incurred.
Zekraus: Efficiency is essential but there is more. Across our client conversations, three recurring themes are shaping the future of SBL technology: innovation, flexibility, and resiliency.
• Innovation to keep pace with rapidly changing markets.
• Flexibility in technology that can support all transaction types.
• Resiliency to avoid single points of failure and withstand volatility.
Whether it is automating workflows, managing real-time supply and demand, or enabling precision trading, the message is clear — the industry is ready for meaningful transformation.
Take the borrower community, for example. They are under constant pressure to assess the market, execute trades with rigour, and fulfil thousands of securities borrowing requests daily. What they need is a system that goes beyond generic solutions — one that allows nuanced engagement with lenders, supports real-time negotiation, and delivers firm, reliable quotes.
It is no longer sufficient to handle GC trades one way and then rely on a few outdated and non-scalable tools to search for liquidity in high-demand, hard-to-borrow securities. Borrowers want intelligent, flexible technology that supports a wide range of trade types and consistently drives optimal outcomes — not just ‘good enough’ results.
That is why GLMX has invested heavily in building a platform that supports the full spectrum of workflows — from high-volume, low-margin GC activity to complex, higher-margin, hard-to-borrow trades. Our technology is designed to meet the demands of today’s market and scale with tomorrow’s needs.
The past few years have also underscored the importance of resilient, secure technology. As market demands increase and threats evolve, ongoing investment in innovation, security, and stability is essential. In today’s cost-conscious environment, finding the right mix of capabilities is not easy — but it is clear that the future of SBL will be driven by platforms that offer access to broad liquidity pools, support flexible trading protocols, and can adapt to a wide range of scenarios.
What solutions are helping market participants solve these challenges?
Long: We have been pleased to see all types of market participants move quickly to adopt new solutions across the SBL ecosystem. Focusing on pre-trade automation, negotiation, and trade execution, clients are turning to GLMX to support intuitive, efficient negotiation and execution. We are seeing a clear desire to maximise the benefits offered by trading functionality across multiple protocols. As Bob mentioned earlier, participants are turning to solutions that can cover the full breadth of GC flow automation, negotiations of specials, and managing execution and trade lifecycle events of collateral transformation trades.
We are also seeing convergence across asset classes. Clients are asking for a solution that fully supports multiple asset classes across desks and regions. A single global venue like GLMX, which supports equity and fixed income SBL across multiple regions, can bring a huge amount of efficiency across the various trading desks at each firm. It is great to see our investments in the product over the past few years paying off.
Zekraus: Clients are solving more challenges directly on trading platforms than anywhere else. As I shared in Securities Finance Times in October 2024, market participants are looking closely at the role that pre-trade, post-trade, and trading solutions play. It is becoming clear that clients want to address as many trading needs as possible at the point of execution — where demand is real and liquidity is visible.
They want to broadcast and/or receive availability and inquiries list, manage request for quotes (RFQs) and indication of interests (IOIs) centrally, and execute or negotiate trades at the best possible rates — all within a single workflow. Increasingly, they are doing exactly that on GLMX, where live availability and resting interest are constantly updated and history can be played back, giving them the visibility and control needed to drive better outcomes.
How is the market making decisions on venue and connectivity solutions?
Zekraus: There has been a lot of confusion in the market around what is needed, what is available, and which solutions are right for the present but more importantly for the future. When I joined GLMX, it was clear there was a ‘fog’ around what participants truly wanted from an alternative platform(s). The question that existed — what constitutes a trading venue versus a hub messaging concept? Today, that fog is lifting.
Clients are thinking more strategically — no longer reacting to hype, middleware buzzwords, or one-off events. They are focused on addressing redundancy, controlling market access costs, and embracing real trading technology that helps them scale. Credible conversations combined with thoughtful engagement and stronger relationships are proving to be the winning formula.
Those who once sought quick fixes to meet compliance or resiliency goals are realising that a perceived time-to-market shortcut may only deliver a basic flow and could reinforce the very single-point-of-failure risk they hoped to avoid.
The market is evolving, and clients are now navigating adoption confidently — not with high-beam urgency, but with a steady focus and a clear path forward. In an era of heightened oversight and prudent due diligence via third-party risk management and procurement reviews, an overwhelming majority of global banks have already onboarded GLMX as they know us very well, given we are the market leader in the other large securities financing part of the market — global repo trading technology.
Long: As Bob described, there are a number of trading venues offering different routes to the SBL market. As you would expect, redundancy and resiliency are key factors for clients in their decision making process. What we have observed is that clients get up and running more quickly when they connect directly, and retain access to cutting-edge functionality where it matters — the point of trade.
We see that it is a real challenge for clients to access the full breadth of protocols and workflows through anything other than a direct connection. At GLMX, we frequently provide critical, high-value system upgrades for our clients which go into immediate, high-volume use. Waiting for a third-party hub to modify its technology to accommodate GLMX’s new capabilities is a non-starter for our client base as, in a competitive market, users do not want to wait.
Dan, you have witnessed GLMX grow from a foundation in repo into securities lending. What have you seen on that journey?
Long: Well, it is important to recognise the extremely strong product and stellar reputation that GLMX has developed in the repo world, which has proved an excellent foundation for our growth in SBL. Over the past couple of years, we have enhanced the technology and functionality, with a focus on the nuances of SBL trading, while building out a strong network of established agent lenders, as well as other more specialised liquidity providers.
The pace of adoption and integration has picked up noticeably over the past year. We are also starting to see the value of integrated technology as the products converge — a fixed income repo desk can efficiently access supply from lenders when processing incoming client requests on GLMX — all from within a single screen.
Bob, you came to GLMX last year, having seen the market as both a participant and a technology provider. What makes GLMX unique?
Zekraus: It has been a whirlwind nine months since I joined and what makes GLMX stand out is clear: the people, the product, and the platform. I have had the privilege of working with some incredible teams and helping businesses scale, but I have never seen a company so intensely focused on the client. We listen, we respond, and we build — fast.
The speed at which we turn client feedback into real solutions, combined with a strong roadmap of innovative features, gives me full confidence in our direction. I have spent decades in this market, and I have never been more certain about the strength of a business and it gives me great confidence to develop it further. Our credibility is unmatched. We deliver exactly what we promise, supported by dependable technology and true subject matter experts.
It is exciting to be part of the next wave of innovation in the financing markets and the future of SBL. Watch this space — this is just the beginning.
What are you both excited for in the next year?
Long: I am fascinated to see how market participants use new workflows and new combinations of protocols across different segments of the market and different asset classes. It is an exciting time to be at GLMX and to be at the forefront of innovation in securities lending.
Zekraus: There is a lot to be excited about. Every day, balances on our platform grow, client engagement deepens, and we continue to transform how SBL is accessed and traded across sovereigns, corporates, and equities. We show up with sleeves rolled up, fully committed to delivering on the uniqueness of our offering.
We are here to meet evolving client needs and we look forward to seeing many of you at upcoming industry conferences, GLMX sponsored events, and city tours. I am excited to welcome more clients onboard, share updates as adoption grows, and expand our network around our product.
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