Quantifying Trader Productivity with Shelly DiCo's
The Challenge
Client is a mid-sized international bank with active currency trading desks across North America and Europe. While the bank had access to sophisticated trading platforms and market data tools, executives lacked visibility into the true cost of trading activity. They could see P&L, but not the operational cost per kilo currency traded by individual traders.
Key questions remained unanswered:
- What is the cost structure behind each trader’s daily activity?
- How much margin is generated per kilo currency traded?
- Which traders or desks are operationally efficient, and which are not?
Shelly’s Solution: DiCo as a Trader Work Order Assistant
Shelly deployed Digital Collaborators (DiCo’s) to reframe trading activity as “work orders”, similar to manufacturing operations. Each trade was treated as a unit of production, with measurable inputs, outputs, and costs.
The Expectation
The institution wants a way to quantify trader productivity, optimize operational costs, and improve margin visibility—beyond traditional market analytics.
The Solution
Shelly DiCo as a Trader Work Order Assistant.
Shelly deployed Digital Collaborators (DiCo’s) to reframe trading activity as “work orders”, similar to manufacturing operations. Each trade was treated as a unit of production, with measurable inputs, outputs, and costs.
Digital Collaborator Capabilities
- Work Order Logging: Every trade was tagged with metadata—trader ID, currency pair, volume, execution time, and channel.
- Cost Attribution: DiCo calculated execution costs (spread, slippage, fees), operational overhead (time, systems, compliance), and infrastructure usage.
- Margin Analysis: Net margin per kilo currency was computed, benchmarked, and visualized.
- Executive Dashboard: Real-time insights into trader efficiency, cost per kilo currency, and margin trends.
The Result
- Cost Transparency: Executives gained a clear view of the cost structure behind trading operations.
- Margin Optimization: Low-margin activities were identified and addressed, improving overall profitability.
- Trader Benchmarking: Performance was compared across desks and regions, enabling strategic staffing and automation decisions.
- Compliance & Audit Readiness: Blockchain-backed work orders provided a secure, immutable audit trail.
The Impact
“Shelly DiCo gave us a lens we never had before. We now understand the economics of trading at a granular level—just like a factory understands its cost per unit. This changes how we manage talent, technology, and strategy.”
— Chief Operating Officer, Client Bank
