Devexperts CEO calls integration the key to AI in capital markets

Rainer Fuchsluger argues fragmented trading infrastructure will blunt AI's impact unless financial firms prioritise interoperability over point solutions.

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Devexperts Global Group CEO Rainer Fuchsluger has published an analysis arguing that systems fragmentation across the investment and trade lifecycle represents the most significant barrier to realising the value of AI in capital markets. Without coherent data infrastructure and reliable interoperability between platforms, he warns, greater automation is as likely to introduce complexity as to remove it.

Fuchsluger, who was appointed Global Group CEO of the Dublin-headquartered financial technology firm last month, frames the argument in terms of a broader rethink of how institutions assess technology investment. Rather than evaluating platforms on standalone technical capabilities, he contends that financial firms should weight interoperability, total cost of ownership, and adaptability to shifting regulatory requirements more heavily in procurement decisions.

The integration problem

The analysis draws on Bank Director's 2026 Technology Survey, which found that 69% of respondents identified integrating new technology with existing systems as a leading concern, up 18 percentage points on the prior year. That sharp rise suggests the problem is not static: as institutions layer AI tools over legacy infrastructure, the complexity compounds rather than resolves.

"Financial institutions should not evaluate technologies individually, but holistically," Fuchsluger said. "Successful technology providers in the past were walled gardens; the standouts in the future will be experts in interoperability. The effectiveness of AI depends on data quality and how well integrated internal systems are. An AI application cannot reliably interpret unnormalised market data or reconcile inconsistent client information across disparate systems without sufficient context."

The argument carries strategic weight for Devexperts itself, which offers a broad product portfolio spanning order management systems, connectivity, risk management, matching engines, market data delivery, and the DXtrade multi-asset trading platform. The company employs more than 800 engineers and serves retail and institutional brokerages, banks, investment funds and exchanges across multiple jurisdictions.

Market context

Fuchsluger's thesis maps onto a well-established tension in capital markets technology: best-of-breed procurement produces deep functional capability in individual domains but creates integration debt that becomes material as workflows grow more data-intensive. The shift toward AI-driven research, surveillance and operations has raised the stakes because machine-learning models are acutely sensitive to data-quality problems that manual workflows can absorb without consequence.

A number of financial technology vendors have positioned interoperability and open APIs as commercial differentiators in recent years, most prominently through initiatives such as the FINOS foundation and the FDC3 open standard for desktop application interoperability. Adoption has been uneven, with large sell-side institutions further along than mid-tier brokerages and regional banks, which remain the core market for platforms such as DXtrade.

Regulatory dynamics are also relevant. MiFID II and its ongoing review, alongside DORA's operational resilience requirements taking effect across EU financial entities from January 2025, place additional demands on firms to demonstrate that their technology estates are auditable, recoverable and fit for purpose under stress. Fragmented, poorly integrated stacks make both compliance and incident response harder, lending Fuchsluger's argument a regulatory dimension beyond the purely commercial.

Competitive positioning

The piece is published on TabbFORUM, a practitioner-facing research and commentary platform, giving it reach into the buy-side and sell-side audiences Devexperts targets. The timing aligns with Fuchsluger's stated strategic priorities: extending Devexperts' coverage of the full trade lifecycle and accelerating cloud and AI adoption across its client base. How quickly the firm can demonstrate that its own suite delivers the integration it advocates will determine how credible the argument appears to prospective customers evaluating it against rivals with comparable breadth claims.

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