Organization and Nature of Operations

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2022

Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]

Organization and Nature of Operations

ORGANIZATION AND NATURE OF OPERATIONS

Nasdaq is a global technology company serving the capital markets and other industries. Our diverse offerings of data, analytics, software and services enable clients to optimize and execute their business vision with confidence.

We manage, operate and provide our products and services in four business segments: Market Technology, Investment Intelligence, Corporate Platforms, and Market Services.

Market Technology

Our Market Technology segment is a leading global technology solutions provider and partner to exchanges, clearing organizations, central securities depositories, regulators, banks, brokers, buy-side firms and corporate businesses. Our solutions are utilized by leading markets in the U.S., Europe and Asia as well as emerging markets in the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. The Market Technology segment includes our Anti Financial Crime Technology business and our Marketplace Infrastructure Technology business.

Our Anti Financial Crime Technology business includes Nasdaq Trade Surveillance, a SaaS solution designed for brokers and other market participants, and Market Surveillance, a solution for market infrastructure operators. Both solutions are designed to assist in complying with market rules, regulations and internal market surveillance policies. In February 2021, we completed the acquisition of Verafin, a SaaS technology provider of anti-financial crime management solutions that offers a cloud-based platform to help detect, investigate, and report money laundering and fraud. Verafin also has targeted sanctions screening solutions that help banks manage Russian sanctions and is further expanding this product to detect new means of evasion-based typologies. Additionally, beginning in the first quarter of 2022, we reclassified Nasdaq Risk Platform revenues from Anti Financial Crime Technology to Marketplace Infrastructure Technology. Total Market Technology segment revenues were unchanged.

Our Marketplace Infrastructure Technology business powers over 130 market infrastructure operators and new market clients in more than 55 countries and handles a wide array of assets, including but not limited to cash equities, equity derivatives, currencies, various interest-bearing securities, commodities, energy products and digital currencies. Our solutions can also be used in the creation of new asset classes, and non-capital markets customers, including those in insurance liabilities securitization, cryptocurrencies and sports wagering.

Investment Intelligence

Our Investment Intelligence segment includes our Market Data, Index and Analytics businesses.

Our Market Data business sells and distributes historical and real-time market data to the sell-side, the institutional investing community, retail online brokers, proprietary trading shops, other venues, internet portals and data distributors. Our market data products can enhance transparency of market activity within our exchanges and provide critical information to professional and non-professional investors globally. Additionally, our Nasdaq Cloud Data Service provided on our Data Link data dissemination platform provides a flexible and efficient method of delivery for real-time exchange data and other financial information.

Our Index business develops and licenses Nasdaq-branded indexes and financial products. We also license cash-settled options, futures and options on futures on our indexes. As of March 31, 2022, 368 ETPs listed on 28 exchanges in over 20 countries tracked a Nasdaq index and accounted for $401 billion in AUM.

Our Analytics business provides asset managers, investment consultants and institutional asset owners with information and analytics to make data-driven investment decisions and deploy their resources more productively. We also provide liquidity solutions for private funds. Through our eVestment and Solovis solutions, we provide a suite of cloud-based solutions that help institutional investors and consultants conduct pre-investment due diligence, and monitor their portfolios post-investment. The eVestment platform also enables asset managers to efficiently distribute information about their firms and funds to asset owners and consultants worldwide. Through the Solovis platform, endowments, foundations, pensions and family offices transform how they collect and aggregate investment data, analyze portfolio performance, model and predict future outcomes, and share meaningful portfolio insights with key stakeholders. The Nasdaq Fund Network and Nasdaq Data Link are additional platforms in our suite of investment data analytics offerings and data management tools. Nasdaq Data Link strengthens our position as a leading source for financial, economic, and alternative datasets. For investment management firms, investment banks and other investors, the platform powers data-driven decision-making for users across the globe via universal application programming interfaces, and provides for highly efficient data discovery and delivery.

Corporate Platforms

Our Corporate Platforms segment includes our Listing Services and IR & ESG Services businesses. These businesses deliver critical capital market and ESG solutions across the lifecycle of public and private companies.

Our Listing Services business includes our U.S. and European Listing Services businesses. We operate a variety of listing platforms around the world to provide multiple global capital raising solutions for public companies. Our main listing markets are The Nasdaq Stock Market and the Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic exchanges. Through Nasdaq First North, our Nordic and Baltic operations also offer alternative marketplaces for smaller companies and growth companies. In July 2021, we contributed our NPM business, which was included in our Listing Services business, to a standalone, independent company, of which we own the largest minority interest, together with a consortium of third party financial institutions. The NPM business provides liquidity solutions for private companies to enable employees, investors, and companies to execute transactions.

As of March 31, 2022, there were 4,242 total listings on The Nasdaq Stock Market, including 447 ETPs. The combined market capitalization was approximately $25.7 trillion. In Europe, the Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic exchanges, together with Nasdaq First North, were home to 1,244 listed companies with a combined market capitalization of approximately $2.2 trillion.

We also operate a U.S. Corporate Bond exchange for the listing of corporate bonds. This exchange operates pursuant to The Nasdaq Stock Market exchange license and is powered by the NFF. As of March 31, 2022, 105 corporate bonds were listed on the Corporate Bond exchange. We continue to develop the Nasdaq Sustainable Bond Network, a platform for increased transparency in the global sustainable bond markets.

Our IR & ESG Services include our portfolio of products and services that support corporations’ investor relations and ESG functions. Our clients include both public and private companies and organizations. Our public company clients can be companies listed on our exchanges or other U.S. and global exchanges. Our private company clients include a diverse group of organizations ranging from family owned companies, government organizations, law firms, privately held entities, various non-profit organizations to hospitals and health care systems. We help organizations enhance their ability to understand and expand their global shareholder base, improve corporate governance, and navigate the evolving ESG landscape through our suite of advanced technology, analytics, reporting and consultative services.

Market Services

Our Market Services segment includes our Equity Derivative Trading and Clearing, Cash Equity Trading, FICC and Trade Management Services businesses. We operate multiple exchanges and other marketplace facilities across several asset classes, including derivatives, commodities, cash equity, debt, structured products and ETPs. In addition, in certain countries where we operate exchanges, we also provide broker services, clearing, settlement and central depository services. In January 2020, we commenced an orderly wind-down of our Nordic broker services operations business. We expect this wind-down to continue through the second quarter of 2022. In June 2021, we completed the acquisition of a majority stake in Puro.earth, a Finnish-based leading marketplace for carbon removal.

Our transaction-based platforms provide market participants with the ability to access, process, display and integrate orders and quotes. The platforms allow the routing and execution of buy and sell orders as well as the reporting of transactions, providing fee-based revenues.

In the U.S., we operate six options exchanges and three cash equity exchanges. The Nasdaq Stock Market, the largest of our cash equities exchanges, is the largest single venue of liquidity for trading U.S.-listed cash equities.

In Canada, we operate an exchange with three independent markets for the trading of Canadian-listed securities: Nasdaq Canada CXC, Nasdaq Canada CX2 and Nasdaq Canada CXD.

In Europe, we operate exchanges in Stockholm (Sweden), Copenhagen (Denmark), Helsinki (Finland), and Reykjavik (Iceland), as well as the clearing operations of Nasdaq Clearing, as Nasdaq Nordic. We also operate exchanges in Tallinn (Estonia), Riga (Latvia) and Vilnius (Lithuania) as Nasdaq Baltic. Collectively, Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic offer trading in cash equities, depository receipts, warrants, convertibles, rights, fund units and ETFs, as well as trading and clearing of derivatives and clearing of resale and repurchase agreements.

Nasdaq Fixed Income provides a wide range of products and services, such as trading and clearing, for fixed income products in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.

Nasdaq Commodities is the brand name for Nasdaq’s European commodity-related products and services. Nasdaq Commodities’ offerings include derivatives in power, natural gas and carbon emission markets, seafood, electricity certificates and clearing services. These products are listed on Nasdaq Oslo ASA, except for seafood, which is listed on Fishpool, a third party platform.

In June 2021, we sold our U.S. Fixed Income business, which included an electronic platform for the trading of U.S. Treasuries. See “2021 Divestiture” of Note 4, “Acquisition and Divestiture,” for further discussion.

Through our Trade Management Services business, we provide market participants with a wide variety of alternatives for connecting to and accessing our markets. Our marketplaces may be accessed via a number of different protocols used for quoting, order entry, trade reporting, and connectivity to various data feeds. In 2021, we launched WorkX, an upgraded version of Nasdaq Workstation, a browser-based, front-end interface that allows market participants to view data and enter orders, quotes and trade reports. WorkX enables a seamless workflow and enhanced trade intelligence. All current Workstation users are expected to migrate to WorkX by the end of 2022. In addition, we offer a variety of add-on compliance tools to help firms comply with regulatory requirements.We provide colocation services to market participants, whereby we offer firms cabinet space and power to house their own equipment and servers within our data centers. Additionally, we offer a number of wireless connectivity offerings between select data centers using millimeter wave and microwave technology.