Future-Proofing ETD Clearing: Four Key Takeaways From Nasdaq Webinar

Clearing firms are operating in a market environment where volatility is more persistent, trading activity is more demanding and client expectations around transparency and responsiveness continue to rise. What was once manageable through workarounds and incremental fixes is now forcing a broader rethink of post-trade infrastructure and exchange-traded derivatives (ETD) clearing operating models.

Those themes were explored during Nasdaq’s recent webinar “How to Navigate Change in an Always-On Ecosystem” moderated by Nasdaq Financial Technology’s Anna Hallgren featuring:

• Daniel Upbin, VP and Head of ETD Clearing Strategy and Solutions at Nasdaq
• Ross Lancaster, Head of Research at Acuiti
• Richard Thompson, COO and Co-Founder at Sernova Financial

The discussion was informed by recent Nasdaq and Acuiti research on clearing modernization, but the conversation itself went beyond the report and focused more on what the findings mean in practice. 
 

Here are four main takeaways on how firms are responding to market change, where modernization is becoming most urgent and what leadership teams should prioritize as ETD clearing moves toward a more real-time future.
 

What is changing in ETD clearing is not simply the intensity of market events. It is the fact that many of the pressures firms once treated as episodic now feel structural. That includes higher trading volumes, more persistent volatility and the expectation that firms must respond faster across margin, collateral and operational workflows.

Technology and infrastructure are crucial enablers here, and their strategic importance was reflected in the survey, with 69% of firms saying they expect to increase post-trade investment over the next three years. 
 

That framing helped set the tone for the discussion. As firms prepare for more continuous markets, more intraday decision-making and faster client response times, modernization is becoming a strategic business question rather than a back-office technology project.
 

One of the strongest themes in the webinar was that firms cannot modernize effectively without first addressing the quality, consistency and accessibility of their data. Legacy systems remain part of the problem, but the more immediate issue is often what those systems produce—fragmented data environments, inconsistent symbologies and limited visibility across the clearing lifecycle.

For firms trying to improve transparency, automate workflows or introduce more advanced tooling, that becomes a major constraint. It is also why data quality continues to show up so prominently in industry discussions and research. In the Nasdaq and Acuiti survey, 51% of firms cited data as a core pain point.
 

That point also has broader implications for AI and automation. The panel made clear that firms cannot expect better outcomes from more sophisticated tools if the underlying data environment remains fragmented. To add urgency, more than half of survey respondents said they risk falling behind competitors if they don’t start integrating AI into clearing workflows.
 

The discussion underscored that modernization should not be defined by simple replacement. The more important question is what kind of infrastructure firms actually need for the next era of cleared markets. Richard Thompson argued that the answer is clear. Clearing infrastructure must be designed for:

• Real-time workflows
• Broader product connectivity
• A global operating model that can support continuity across time zones
   

That is a meaningful shift from how many firms have historically approached infrastructure investment. Traditionally, it was possible to extend the life of older systems through tactical enhancements and fragmented integrations. But as markets become more time-sensitive and clearing workflows become more interconnected, those incremental fixes can introduce new forms of fragility rather than reduce them.

This is where resiliency also becomes more than a technology feature. It becomes a design principle. The firms that recover fastest, adapt fastest and scale most effectively tend to be the ones with cleaner data, fewer operational bottlenecks and infrastructure that can support both intraday responsiveness and long-term flexibility.
 

The webinar also touched on how emerging technologies are beginning to matter more for ETD clearing.
 

In a world where the timing of collateral movement, liquidity access and margin response can matter more than ever, technologies that support faster, more flexible capital movement are no longer just future-state concepts.

With regard to broader clearing modernization, the firms that prepare effectively for next-generation markets are not treating infrastructure strategy and innovation strategy as separate, but as a unified approach. 
 

The panel returned several times to a simple but important point: Modernization is best implemented when it is targeted. In practice, attempting to replace every process, workflow and dependency simultaneously can lead to change risk and complexity.

A more viable path is to start with one process, one market or one area of friction that has a clear impact on growth, resilience or cost reduction. That message also aligns with what firms are wrestling with more broadly. Nearly 60% of respondents in the Nasdaq and Acuiti survey said they are actively executing or evaluating platform change, while 71% identified change risk as a major challenge. 
 

That idea gives modernization a more realistic shape. It moves the conversation away from abstraction and toward sequencing, governance and measurable progress. It also reflects the reality that leadership alignment matters as much as technical ambition. The ability to identify the right starting point — and bring the organization with it — is often what separates momentum from delay.
 

The most important takeaway from the webinar may be that ETD clearing modernization is no longer best understood as a technology agenda. It is a leadership agenda. The decisions firms make now about infrastructure, data, resiliency and operating model design will increasingly shape how effectively they compete, adapt and serve clients in the next phase of market evolution.

This is what makes the current moment so important. Clearing firms are not simply responding to temporary pressure. They are preparing for a market structure that is becoming more continuous, more interconnected and more demanding of real-time control. The institutions that move forward most effectively will likely be the ones that pair strategic patience with deliberate action—investing in foundations first, then building toward the future with greater confidence and optionality.

Nasdaq Calypso is helping firms build toward that future state by supporting ETD clearing through a model that combines real-time processing across position management, margining and collateral management with an end-to-end clearing platform and dedicated support for implementation, deployment and operational support. Together, these capabilities make Nasdaq Calypso a strategic partner for firms modernizing ETD clearing infrastructure while preserving flexibility in how they operate, scale and serve clients.
 

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