At its most recent user group meeting, WM Datenservice provided new insights into the further development of Fontus. The focus was on modernising the infrastructure, the platform’s long-term direction and the project’s next milestones.
Fontus is currently attracting increased attention within the industry. This made the interest in WM Datenservice’s user group meeting on 16 June 2026 all the greater. Joachim Lauterbach, CEO of the WM Group, sent a strong signal by personally answering participants’ questions.
During the User Group, the focus was on the technical development of the platform, current infrastructure measures and further project planning.
Mainframe upgrade for future-proof performance
According to WM, the performance and scalability issues that have been the subject of intensive discussion in recent months have now been technically addressed. To this end, the company is investing, amongst other things, in additional host capacity and the ongoing modernisation of the infrastructure to the new IBM z17 platform. This is in response to continuously rising data volumes. WM expects the number of active instruments in end-of-day processing to grow to more than 4.5 million by 2027. According to the company, longer processing times would have been expected without technical countermeasures. Initial results from the infrastructure measures are expected before the end of the summer.
However, the technical development is not intended solely to ensure stability. With the so-called Fontus Execution Engine (FEE), WM has introduced a central component of its future architecture. According to the company, initial tests have already achieved processing speeds of more than 11,000 objects per second. Among other things, the aim is to reduce batch dependencies, process data streams more flexibly and lay the foundations for new value-added services. These include, for example, AI-supported evaluations, natural language queries and advanced analytical functions.
It became clear during the event that WM does not view Fontus solely as a migration project. Rather, the platform is intended to form the long-term basis for the future provision and use of securities master data. Lauterbach made it clear that the analyses carried out in recent months were deliberately used to establish a sound technical and organisational foundation for the platform for the coming years.
Final Fontus timeline expected in September 2026
Many users were particularly interested in the question of the future timetable. After a possible go-live around the Easter weekend of 2028 had been discussed at the previous User Group meeting, the focus this time was initially on the architectural decisions and their implications for further planning. An updated roadmap has not yet been presented. However, WM announced that it would present the results of the ongoing analyses in September and finalise the project’s future roadmap. The open and self-critical communication during the User Group suggests that the industry will then receive a reliable overview of the next milestones and the further timetable.
Regardless of this, the latest results of the readiness survey indicate movement in the market. According to WM’s own figures, it received feedback from 87 per cent of its member institutions. It is particularly interesting to look at those institutions that have not yet started their Fontus projects or have currently put them on hold. Of this group, 95 per cent stated that they intend to resume their activities in the near future. More than half of these institutions also plan to use the early-release D20 fields. In this context, WM emphasised that the relevant D20 requirements have been implemented and that supplementary documentation and implementation guides are available.
Whilst the technical target architecture is currently being further refined, the functional and organisational preparations on the client side are already continuing in many places. The roadmap announced for September is therefore likely to be awaited with particular interest.
If you have any questions or require urgent support, you can also contact our team directly at: fontus@dps.de
Our Capital Markets team has been covering the topic of Fontus since 2024 in seven further published articles to date. A list of the articles can be found here.
