The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) recently announced its plan to extend US equities clearing hours, a move that Tokenovate CEO and Founder Richard Baker believes signals a larger shift in post-trade infrastructure. While many have focused on the implications for trading hours, Baker argues that the transition to continuous markets highlights the inherent limitations of legacy post-trade systems.
"DTCC's move confirms that capital markets are becoming continuous, but much of the post-trade infrastructure was designed for batch processing and defined market hours," commented Baker. He suggests that simply extending operating hours is not enough.
According to Baker, the industry's push towards an "always-on" trading environment exposes the inefficiencies of current post-trade operations, which often rely on manual processes, fragmented data, and overnight batches. He warns that without significant modernization, longer trading hours could merely shift operational bottlenecks rather than eliminate them.
"The industry has spent years making execution faster. The next competitive advantage will come from modernising what happens after the trade," Baker explained. He argues that as market hours extend, the firms that will succeed are those that can automate post-trade workflows, including lifecycle events, collateral movements, and settlement, on a continuous basis."
