Kevin Houstoun Elected as Director of FIX Protocol Limited

Rapid Addition’s Executive Chairman, Kevin Houstoun, was appointed as a Director of FIX Protocol Limited following a recent membership ballot. Kevin is appointed along with Emma Quinn, SVP, Global Co-head of Equity Trading at Alliance Bernstein and Lou Rosato, Director at BlackRock.

Kevin has had a long association with FIX. He has been involved in the initial foundation of the FIX Protocol Limited (FPL). Later, he co-chaired the FPL Global technical Committee between 2002 to 2012. Although stepping down from the role when asked to lead the Global Standards in Financial Markets initiative by the UK Government, Kevin has remained a strong supporter of the FIX Trading Community.

Kevin, an engineer by background, entered capital markets in 1996 at Robert Fleming, where he wrote one of Europe’s first FIX engines. In 1999, he joined Salomon Brothers as co-head of European Equity Electronic Trading, working with Jim Leman and FIX’s founders. He later had a successful career in electronic trading strategy at HSBC, gaining deep expertise in the field. His knowledge led to key roles in Government reviews, including the Future of Computer-Based Trading and the UK fintech review. Kevin is now Executive Chairman at Rapid Addition and a Visiting Researcher at LSE’s Systemic Risk Centre.

Kevin’s nomination for the FIX Director role comes on the basis of his manifesto. It highlights his conviction that standards are central to the ongoing evolution of electronic trading and for creating efficient, increasingly automated financial markets:

1. FPL will need a clear vision for the next phase of the evolution of FIX. It cannot be incremental.
2. Coronavirus will challenge FPL’s business model, with restrictions on conferences and pressure on membership subscriptions directly impacting key revenue streams. We need a clear strategy to survive and remain a force for good in our industry.
3. Margin compression and the rising regulatory burden continue to create cost challenges across our membership base. We must refocus on driving cost out of the trading lifecycle.
4. We need to understand the current and future impact of regulators, government entities and other standards bodies on market structure and practices, working in collaboration to continually drive down costs and generate greater engagement from our members and users.
5. As electronic trading continues to mature, we need to ensure that FIX remains a central standard to help firms evolve to a fully automated business model.
6. The future of electronic trading is to empower the end client with more control and FIX needs to support this with standards, facilitating a more dynamic environment.
7. Finally, I believe there should be more transparency for members regarding the operation of FPL and will strongly campaign for this at the board level if elected.