By Ben Challice, CEO

Infrastructure catches up with ambition

Three months ago, I wrote about PASLA Bangkok and the conversations that pointed to where this market was heading. The pace of change since then has been striking. What was a forward-looking argument about sequencing in April is now more than a proof of concept. A single quarter from thesis to implementation – that is simply breathtaking. 

Seeing the AI virtuous cycle deliver 

The idea of the AI virtuous cycle is simple – automation eliminates operational cost; savings fund connected lifecycle infrastructure; connected data enables AI to function; AI surfaces new revenue and infrastructure. It sounds like a diagram but now we have a proof point.

We are developing a new AI-enabled settlement solution that uses Pirum's post-trade data, including settlement cycle behaviour, lifecycle patterns, and counterparty reliability accumulated across 150+ institutions and $6.5 trillion in daily transactions, to generate two signals at the point of trade:

  1. How this counterparty has historically settled
  2. Whether triparty collateral is working hard enough

These outputs are derived from observed behaviour across the full Post Trade Services cycle. The data was already there, so we focused on delivering the intelligence layer near-real time.

From raw data to desk-ready intelligence 

What matters architecturally is both what the solution shows and how it delivers.

The same signal is available in two ways: as a trader-facing UI embedded inside Pirum, and as a programmatic feed via REST API and MCP endpoints for firms building their own AI agents. MCP (the Model Context Protocol) is the emerging standard for connecting AI agents to real-world data and allowing them to act on it. Just last month, Robinhood launched agentic trading via MCP in beta.

That is one data point in a broader signal that the architecture for human decisions and agent decisions running in parallel, on the same data layer, is arriving in financial markets faster than most firms have planned for. For Robinhood's Agentic Trading, it's enabling retail traders. Pirum's settlement solution, meanwhile, will empower financing markets more widely.

Where ISLA’s direction of travel points 

In her first CEO letter as head of ISLA in January, Ina Budh-Raja was direct about where the pressure is coming from: "We recognise that legal and regulatory uncertainty and fragmentation is often at odds with the pressures on our members to drive efficiencies through global operating models, the need to optimise resources and increasingly move faster and seamlessly, as we look towards 24/7 borderless trading."

Firms that have run the virtuous cycle are already operating at the speed Ina describes. Our latest solution exemplifies that cycle: post-trade behaviour, accumulated across $6.5 trillion in daily transactions, surfaced as a pre-trade signal at the moment a trader needs it. From thesis to implementation in three months. That is the cycle, made real.

Pirum's 2026 AI roadmap builds on this foundation. To understand what it means for your programme, get in touch.

Also included in the Quarterly Panorama
  • Zoë Balkwell on why T+1 is a three-legged race, and what the international transition means for every participant in the chain
  • Payal Lakhani on the AMI-SeCo's Corporate Events Harmonised Implementation Guide, and why the regulator has already drawn the map for T+1 corporate actions processing'

The Quarterly Panorama also includes a regulatory and events calendar and a product news section.