By Carmine Salute, Head of Commercial Development, Americas

I've spent 25 years selling into financial services – from Bloomberg to Thomson Reuters to S&P Global. I've seen a lot of "game-changing" technology pitches. But what I'm seeing in North America right now? This is different.

For the first time in my career, clients aren't asking "why should we choose your solution?" They're asking, "how fast can you get us live?"

What changed: T+1 forced the conversation

Here's what I'm hearing in every conversation in the US and Canada:

From trading desks: "We can't keep patching together five different systems and hoping they talk to each other by tomorrow close of business."

From operations: "T+1 exposed every break in our workflow. We're spending more on exceptions than we saved on headcount."

From business owners: "Show me the P&L impact. Not the efficiency story – the actual dollars."

That last one is where this gets interesting.

The P&L conversation that closes deals

What NAM clients and prospects now understand they need is complete lifecycle automation that delivers measurable P&L improvement:

Real cost-per-trade visibility

Scalable, centralized, global solution: A global, scalable solution that matches my business and what's happening in the market across Equities, Fixed Income and multiassets, with a transparent flat-fee cost structure, ensuring cost-effective trading.

Pre- and Post Trade integration: Pirum TradeConnect seamlessly integrates effortlessly with post-trade services, streamlining your operations and setting the foundation for 'Get it Right, Pre Trade' operations.

Reduction in quarterly results: Prospects are quantifying significant savings – often in the millions annually from better collateral management. They're not optimizing manually, they're running automated workflows that make real-time decisions a reality.

Sub-30-minute bid to settlement: This isn't marketing. Clients with the right set up are achieving this today, by combining our Pirum TradeConnect, RQV, ExposureConnect, and Loan Release solutions, fundamentally changing their competitive positioning.

Why NAM demand is different from EMEA

T+1 created immediate pain. EMEA has until October 2027. NAM went live May 2024, and Pirum clients were able to enjoy a smooth transition and focus on growth rather than firefighting. The firms that didn't fix their infrastructure or threw headcount at the problem, have been bleeding operational cost since, with some buyside firms having experienced up to an 18% uplift in staffing costs. Such firms are looking for solutions now.

The "build vs. buy" debate is over. Today the consensus seems to be build and buy, a complementary approach, where firms are asking for modular platforms that can easily be integrated into your own tech stack.

Network effects are visible. When I tell prospects that 25 of 30 G-SIBs use Pirum and several are already printing trades bilaterally on Pirum TradeConnect, with connectivity to their post trade ops, they don't just nod. They ask "which ones, and can I speak with them?" These are competitive signals.

P&L impact, not features

Many NAM firms don't want to be first adopters. But no one wants to be last one to the party. With 25 of 30 G-SIBs using Pirum, several DPG members, like Citi, already printing trades, firms understand that if they're not connected and their competitors are, they're at a disadvantage. That is a fast-growing network effect in our industry.

Meanwhile, every business owner cares about revenue and costs. Complete lifecycle solutions hit both: reduces funding costs and frees up high-quality assets for profitable deployment.

T+1 "readiness" is over

North American firms are already in T+1. What they need is operational excellence. I'm seeing firms that implemented T+1 but didn't fix infrastructure. They're managing 3x exception volume with the same headcount.

Firms that survived T+1 but recognize they need better data architecture to compete and set a solid foundation for AI-enabled operations.

And early adopters building competitive moats.

Bottom line

Our customers aren't asking us to educate them on why seamless pre-trade to post-trade matters. They're asking us to show them how to implement it before their competitors do so they can stay ahead of the curve.

About the author

Carmine Salute is Head of Commercial Development, Americas at Pirum. He brings over 25 years of sales and industry experience, most recently as Managing Director & Global Head of Sales for Lending Solutions at S&P Global Market Intelligence. Prior to S&P, Carmine held senior sales leadership roles at IHS Markit (Head of Americas Sales for Regulatory Compliance), Thomson Reuters, and began his career specializing in market data at Bloomberg.

Want to continue the conversation with Carmine to learn more about how Pirum TradeConnect and our Complete, Connected Lifecycle platform help firms achieve operational excellence? Get in touch here.