Plumbing the World's Markets: The Story of ICE
This article explains how an energy business founded in 2000 transformed into global financial company the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), whose assets include the New York Stock Exchange. One key to the transition was founder and CEO Jeff Sprecher's appreciation that he could significantly boost trading capacity by turning the old open outcry system into fully electronic markets – something that occurred not that long ago. Those who criticize the financial industry for being slow moving might look to the disruptive influence of ICE, whose most recent expansion move was the announcement that it is buying electronic mortgage platform Ellie Mae. The author argues that this acquisition follows two key themes of Sprecher: the switch to digital from analog and the increasing importance of data. "The conversion of the mortgage process to digital is still in its early stages," the article says. "Like in other areas, Covid is accelerating it. Electronic mortgage closings (eNotes) have been available in the US for a while; adoption recently jumped to 3% from 1% a few quarters ago. But for the most part mortgage transactions are still largely paper-based and can take months to settle. Venture capitalist Josh Wolfe likes to talk about 'directional arrows of progress'. This seems like one of them, and Sprecher has the track record to do it." Post Ellie Mae, ICE will be a significantly larger company with an even broader revenue base.