The year 2025 offered no shortage of headlines – from a new administration and new SEC leadership in Washington, D.C. to continued innovation across prediction markets, overnight trading, tokenization and the evolution of institutional crypto. Across these areas and more, there was considerable evolution in the infrastructure, regulation, data and services that underpin the capital markets and financial services more broadly.
To make sense of all these shifts, we [TabbFORUM] spoke with a diverse group of market participants, technology providers and industry leaders to get their view of what truly mattered in 2025 – and what may prove even more important in the year ahead. What follows is a snapshot of the shifts that are genuinely changing how markets function, as well as some emerging dynamics still flying under the radar.
James Cawley, RTX, Founder, CEO
RTX provides a modern marketplace by offering a platform for electronic and voice-assisted execution of interest rate derivative instruments.
2025 Review: In 2025, the defining story in the interdealer interest rate swaps market was the widening gap between rising market complexity and the legacy voice-driven workflows still supporting daily execution. Even as electronic trading became the norm in dealer-to-client markets, interdealer IRS has remained an outlier – highly sophisticated in scale, yet operationally constrained by manual processes, inconsistent fills and delayed risk updates. That tension became more visible this year as volumes grew and institutions faced mounting pressure to reduce costs and improve efficiency. The takeaway was clear: the status quo is no longer sustainable. With a growing willingness across desks to rethink entrenched behaviors, 2025 marked the point where the market acknowledged that meaningful modernization is not just possible, but increasingly necessary.
2026 Outlook: In 2026, I expect the industry’s focus to shift toward the structural modernization of the interdealer swaps market – an area that has long lagged behind broader rates trading. As activity increases and cross-asset hedging becomes more complex, the limitations of voice-dominated workflows will be harder to ignore. The big story will be the movement toward scalable electronic infrastructure that can deliver more consistent execution, lower operational risk and better alignment with modern trading demands. This evolution is still early and often overlooked, but momentum is building: institutions are signaling a stronger appetite for efficiency, access to real-time data, and tools that fit how traders actually manage risk. Working with its dealer partners, RTX is helping drive this evolution by delivering lower cost, frictionless trade execution, trade automation and scalability needed for modern interdealer workflows. In many ways, 2026 will be the year the market begins shifting from recognizing the need for change to actively implementing it.
