Revolutionising Listed Derivatives Block Trading: The Power of Innovation and Technology
By Ben Parker, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer, InTick
First published in Harrington Starr’s Financial Technologist Magazine, 20th October 2025
For far too long, listed derivatives block trading has been characterised by outdated and highly complex manual processes. Despite the technological revolution impacting nearly every other asset class, this critical segment of financial markets has remained largely untouched by innovation.
The reality of executing large block orders in listed derivatives trading today involves significant manual pre-and post-trade information exchanges, leading to costly, inefficient, and time-intensive workflows for both buy-side and sell-side market participants. This lack of electronification, centralised pricing information, and independent matching places unnecessary constraints and introduces risk, often leaving potential profitable trading opportunities unrealised.
The industry has historically deemed automation too complex to implement in this space, creating a stalemate. The fundamental problem for market participants is the speed and effort required in securing a block trade. As innovators and ex-market participants, we recognised that this current state often leads to suboptimal trading outcomes; however, we also recognised that the market did not require, or want to, reinvent its workflows.
We knew there was a need to replicate the workflows the market is familiar with, whilst significantly re-thinking how listed derivatives block trading is done.
InTick was born from a determination to challenge the status quo in listed derivatives block trading
When we launched a year ago, we brought together the best practitioners and technology to develop a platform that simplified and minimised the number of actions carried out during listed derivatives block trading. The result is InTick: an independent blocking network, fit for purpose, and uniquely designed for the listed derivatives blocking market from the outset.
InTick digitises manual, bilateral processes conducted over several platforms, providing a single source of truth for listed derivatives pricing. The platform delivers the multi-sourced, accurate, and actionable price and trade information that firms so critically need to trade efficiently and profitably.
The industry has welcomed innovation and automation in listed derivatives block trading
The market's reception has been enthusiastic, with both buy-side and sell-side participants embracing the much-needed innovation needed to enable all-to-all matching and reliable RFQ data.
Going live during the June ICE Gilt and Eurex Fixed Income futures rolls in June 2025, the platform immediately began facilitating the exchange of active block orders. Partnering with a Tier 1 Executing Broker, the go-live saw multi-jurisdictional investment managers and hedge funds sharing liquidity and processing orders electronically. As a result, the InTick network is rapidly expanding, attracting a growing community.
What’s more, funding raised this summer serves to fuel ongoing investment in our technological infrastructure, further expanding InTick’s offering to include all major products within listed derivatives.
What we set out to do is to provide the innovation required to reshape complex, high-touch market trading. And we are already seeing that the data and value analysis available to users opens up previously untapped insights to support better trading decisions. With InTick, we are finally delivering transformative innovation to the industry. At its heart, InTick is an easy-to-use platform that enables organisations to optimise their block-listed derivatives trading and drive business growth.