What ISS LiquidMetrix does

ISS LiquidMetrix is a London-based fintech firm that provides transaction cost analysis (TCA), Best Execution measurement, market abuse surveillance, trading venue intelligence, and bespoke market data research to financial institutions globally. The company operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) under the legal entity Intelligent Financial Systems Limited, and markets its four core products under registered trademarks: TCA™, Surveillance™, Venue Statistics™, and LM Research™. Its core customer segments are Buy Side asset managers, Sell Side brokers, and venue operators including exchanges, dark pools, and regulators, with a secondary segment of financial researchers and quantitative analysts. The firm emphasizes complete independence from commission-based fees as a central value proposition, positioning itself as an unbiased third-party analytics provider.

The ISS LiquidMetrix platform is built around a multi-market infrastructure that aggregates in-depth global market order books and trade data, performing millions of calculations each day to deliver its services. TCA™ measures trading performance and supports regulatory Best Execution compliance through execution quality reports, outlier reports, depth-of-market analysis, and customizable venue/algo/broker reporting. Surveillance™ provides automated market abuse detection with integrated case management, combining price/volume anomaly detection with regulatory and global news wires. Venue Statistics™ offers business intelligence on liquidity, volumes, and venue performance and is used by exchanges and regulators as a primary reference source. LM Research™ conducts bespoke research and publishes recurring reports including the LiquidMetrix Battlemaps on European fragmentation and the Dark Pool Guide.

ISS LiquidMetrix generates revenue through enterprise subscription contracts for its four core products, following a stated low-cost policy with no high implementation fees or additional charges for training and support. The go-to-market is direct enterprise sales targeting financial institutions globally, supported by a dedicated client portal (services.liquidmetrix.com) and content marketing through the ISS Governance Insights platform. The firm is headquartered at 4th Floor, One London Bridge, London, SE1 9BG, United Kingdom, with research coverage spanning Europe and North America. The platform is designed to support rapid onboarding via standard trade file formats compatible with the majority of OMS and EMS systems.

Name

ISS LiquidMetrix

Legal name

Intelligent Financial Systems Limited

Website

https://liquidmetrix.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1995

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

ISS LiquidMetrix is a London-based fintech subsidiary of ISS providing transaction cost analysis, best execution measurement, market abuse surveillance, trading venue intelligence, and market data research to asset managers, brokers, exchanges, and regulators globally through subscription-based enterprise services.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Trading Analytics Software

NAICS

Securities, Commodity Contracts, and Other Financial Investments and Related Activities (523)

SIC

Finance Services (6199)

akta.pro primary industry

Algorithmic Trading & Execution Platforms (FSAFANAN)

akta.pro secondary industry

Execution Management Systems (EMS) & Smart Order Routing (SOR) Platforms (FSAFANAM)

Keywords

• Transaction cost analysis
• Best execution monitoring
• Market surveillance software
• Trading venue analytics
• Financial market research

Headquarters

HQ city

London

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Software/SaaS Subscriptions: ISS LiquidMetrix provides regulatory, monitoring and performance reporting services through a platform that performs millions of calculations daily. Revenue is generated through service subscriptions for TCA, Surveillance, Venue Statistics, and Research products, with the company emphasizing a low-cost policy without high implementation fees or additional training/support costs.

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

ISS LiquidMetrix provides a software platform delivering Transaction Cost Analysis (TCA™), Best Execution measurement, Market Abuse Surveillance™, Trading Venue Statistics™, and bespoke financial market Research (LM Research™) to Buy Side asset managers, Sell Side brokers, exchanges, and regulators. The platform is core infrastructure that performs millions of calculations daily using in-depth global market order books and trade data, supporting regulatory compliance, execution performance monitoring, and external reporting across multiple asset classes.

Product overview

ISS LiquidMetrix is a platform providing TCA, Best Execution, Surveillance, Venue Statistics, and Research services. The platform is designed as core infrastructure performing millions of calculations daily, servicing Buy Side, Sell Side, and Venue operator clients globally. The four core products—TCA™ for transaction cost analysis and execution performance, Surveillance™ for market abuse detection, Venue Statistics™ for trading venue intelligence, and LM Research™ for bespoke financial market data research—work together to help clients reduce trading costs, satisfy regulatory requirements, and provide external reporting.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• TCA™ Industry-leading Transaction Cost Analysis and Best Execution service for Asset Managers and Brokers to measure trading performance and satisfy regulatory requirements. Includes Execution Quality Reports, Outlier Reports, order/execution analysis, customizable reporting, and automated client reporting across multiple asset classes.
• Surveillance™ Automated Market Abuse detection and case management system for investment firms. Uses multi-market infrastructure to identify price points and volumes, supplemented by Regulatory and Global News wires, with an in-built case management workflow for sophisticated alerting.
• Venue Statistics™ Market-leading business intelligence on trading venues providing analysis of liquidity, best prices, instrument coverage, dark trading volumes, and Dark Pool performance. Used by Exchanges and Regulators as a primary reference source, with coverage of dark pools, lit markets, and large in scale/block trading.
• LM Research™ Financial market data research service based on advanced analytics and an in-depth database of global market order books and trade data. Provides bespoke execution consulting for brokers, asset managers, and venues, publishes the LiquidMetrix Battlemaps on European fragmentation and the Dark Pool Guide, and investigates market events including outages, tick size changes, and volatility.

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability1 record

Feature4 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS)coreOthersISS LiquidMetrix is a wholly owned subsidiary of Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS). The parent company is a major provider of corporate governance and responsible investment solutions. The subsidiary operates under the ISS brand for trading and surveillance products.

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves1 record

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• Abel Noser Holdings: Long-standing independent TCA and execution quality analytics provider to buy-side and sell-side clients. Direct competitor in the same product category with comparable independence positioning.
• BestEx Research: Provides TCA and execution analytics alongside execution algorithms, directly overlapping with ISS LiquidMetrix's TCA/Best Execution product.

Broad incumbents

• Bloomberg (EMSX / TCA): Embeds TCA and execution analytics within the Bloomberg Terminal and EMSX execution platform; broader incumbent offering bundled data, analytics, and execution workflows.
• LSEG (Refinitiv) Transaction Analytics: Offers TCA, best execution, and trade surveillance capabilities within the broader Refinitiv Workspace data suite; a major incumbent competitor in execution analytics.
• S&P Global / IHS Markit (Trade Analytics): Provides trade and post-trade analytics as part of its broader market intelligence platform; an incumbent competitor with significant data and distribution scale.
• Virtu Financial (ITG Analytics): Offers TCA and execution analytics via the legacy ITG business alongside Virtu's broader market-making and execution platforms; competes in the same TCA category.
• FlexTrade Systems: Multi-asset execution management system vendor with TCA reporting built in; serves the same buy-side and sell-side clients with bundled execution + analytics.
• Nasdaq Market Surveillance: Operates a market surveillance platform used by exchanges and regulators for trade and abuse surveillance; directly comparable to ISS LiquidMetrix's Surveillance offering.

Emerging players

• IPC Systems (Connexus Cloud / Surveillance): Communications and surveillance provider for capital markets participants with overlap into trade surveillance and compliance workflows adjacent to ISS LiquidMetrix's offering.
• OneMarketData: Tick history and analytics provider for capital markets, overlapping with ISS LiquidMetrix's order-book data and venue analytics capabilities at a more infrastructure-focused level.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/liquidmetrix-ltd

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about ISS LiquidMetrix