Item 1. Business

OVERVIEW

Nasdaq is a global technology company serving corporate clients, investment managers, banks, brokers, and exchange operators as they navigate and interact with the global capital markets and the broader financial system. We aspire to deliver world-leading platforms that improve the liquidity, transparency, and integrity of the global economy. Our diverse offering of data, analytics, software, exchange capabilities, and client-centric services enables clients to optimize and execute their business vision with confidence.

We manage, operate and provide our products and services in three business segments: Capital Access Platforms, Financial Technology and Market Services.

HISTORY

Nasdaq was founded in 1971 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of FINRA. Beginning in 2000, FINRA restructured and broadened ownership in Nasdaq by selling shares to FINRA members, investment companies and issuers listed on The Nasdaq Stock Market. In connection with this restructuring, FINRA fully divested its ownership of Nasdaq in 2006, and The Nasdaq Stock Market became an independent registered national securities exchange in 2007.

In February 2008, Nasdaq and OMX AB combined their businesses, and we changed our corporate name to The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. This transformational combination resulted in the expansion of our business from a U.S.-based exchange operator to a global exchange company offering technology that powers our own exchanges and markets as well as many other marketplaces around the world. We operated as the NASDAQ OMX Group until we rebranded our business as Nasdaq, Inc. in 2015.

In November 2023, we accelerated our transformation as a leading technology provider to the global financial system through the acquisition of Adenza and its two flagship solutions, AxiomSL and Calypso.

GROWTH STRATEGY

To enable success in the evolving global financial system, we have established our purpose, vision, and value proposition together with a focused growth strategy:

Our Purpose: We advance economic progress for all.

Our Vision: We will be the trusted fabric of the world’s financial system.

Our Value Proposition: We deliver world-leading platforms that improve the liquidity, transparency and integrity of the global economy.

Our Strategy: In 2017, we implemented a new strategic direction with the aim of optimizing the deployment of resources, human capital, and financial assets towards our most promising growth opportunities. These opportunities,

which we identified as substantial and expanding opportunities, included solutions for combating financial crime, compliance solutions, marketplace technology, workflow for investment managers and asset owners as well as insight solutions. Our strengths in technology, proprietary data, analytics, and capital markets expertise, in conjunction with our broad client base and innovative brand has positioned us favorably to meet the evolving demands of our clientele and deliver in a sustainable way.

In order to amplify our strategy, we aligned our company more closely with the evolving client needs with an aim to drive growth across our key pillars of liquidity, transparency and integrity:

• Liquidity: Within our Financial Technology and Market Services segments, we continue to modernize markets by utilizing technology to maximize the liquidity of the global economy. New technologies, including cloud, blockchain, machine learning and AI, present significant opportunities to further enhance market resiliency and scalability and make markets even more accessible. We believe that these technologies will enable more opportunities for market participants and new asset classes to be integrated across markets globally.

• Transparency: With nearly 10,000 corporate clients and 5,000 clients across the investment management ecosystem, our Capital Access Platforms segment is a trusted partner to enable the corporate and investment communities in making more informed decisions. Leveraging the insights and capabilities across our listings, advisory, data, index, and analytics teams, we believe that Capital Access Platforms segment serves as a bridge between the investor and corporate communities, focused on enhancing the client experience by providing efficient routes to capital, delivering more holistic, actionable insights and intelligence, modernizing workflows, and navigating the climate and sustainability landscape.

• Integrity: Financial Crime Management Technology and Regulatory Technology, within our Financial Technology segment, include Nasdaq’s fraud detection, anti-money laundering, surveillance and risk data management and regulatory reporting solutions businesses. These businesses remain focused on capturing the opportunities arising from protecting the integrity of the financial system by fighting financial crime and helping our clients solve their most complex risk and compliance challenges.

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

Capital Access Platforms

Our Capital Access Platforms segment delivers liquidity, transparency and integrity to the corporate issuer and investment community by empowering our clients to effectively navigate the capital markets, achieve their sustainability goals, and drive governance excellence. We offer a suite of products to assist companies in managing corporate governance standards.

Our Capital Access Platforms segment comprises Data & Listing Services, Index and Workflow & Insights.

Data & Listing Services

Our North American and European data products enhance transparency of market activity within our exchanges and provide critical information to professional and non-professional investors globally. Our Data business distributes historical and real-time market data to sell-side customers, the institutional investing community, retail online brokers, proprietary trading firms, and other venues, as well as internet portals and data distributors.

We collect, process, and create information and earn revenues as a distributor of our own, as well as select third-party, content. We provide varying levels of quote and trade information to market participants and to data distributors who in turn provide subscriptions for this information. Our systems enable distributors to gain access to our market depth, order imbalances, market sentiment and other analytical data.

We distribute this proprietary market information to both market participants and non-participants through a number of proprietary products, including Nasdaq TotalView, our flagship market depth quote product. We offer TotalView products for The Nasdaq Stock Market and our Nasdaq BX, Nasdaq PSX and Nordic markets. We also offer Nordic Equity TotalView, Nordic Derivatives TotalView and Nordic Fixed Income TotalView for Nordic markets.

We operate several other proprietary services and data products to provide market information, including Nasdaq Basic, a lower cost alternative to the industry Level 1 feed and Nasdaq Canada Basic, a lower cost alternative to other data feeds. We also provide various other data, including data relating to our U.S. equities and options exchanges and Nordic equities, derivatives, fixed income and futures.

We operate a variety of listing platforms around the world to provide multiple global capital raising solutions for public companies. Companies listed on our markets represent a diverse array of industries including, among others, healthcare, consumer products, telecommunication services, information technology, financial services, industrials and energy. Our main listing markets are The Nasdaq Stock Market and the Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic exchanges.

Companies seeking to list securities on The Nasdaq Stock Market may do so on one of the three market tiers: The Nasdaq Global Select Market, The Nasdaq Global Market, or The Nasdaq Capital Market. To qualify, companies must meet minimum listing requirements, including specified financial and corporate governance criteria. Once listed, companies must maintain rigorous listing and corporate governance standards.

As of December 31, 2024, a total of 5,249 companies listed securities on our U.S., Nasdaq Nordic, Nasdaq Baltic and Nasdaq First North exchanges. As of December 31, 2024, a total of 4,075 companies listed securities on The Nasdaq Stock Market, with 1,383 listings on The Nasdaq Global Select Market, 1,366 on The Nasdaq Global Market and 1,326 on The Nasdaq Capital Market.

We seek new listings from companies conducting IPOs, including SPACs, and direct listings as well as companies looking to switch from alternative exchanges. The 2024 new listings were comprised of the following:

Operating company IPOs			130
SPAC IPOs			50
Switches from the New York Stock Exchange LLC, or NYSE, and the NYSE American LLC, or NYSE American			17
Upgrades from OTC			22
ETPs and Other Listings			244
Total			463
The Nasdaq Stock Market eligible IPO win rates:
2024 total			82		%
Operating companies			80		%

During 2024, we had 17 new listings resulting from operating companies switching their listings from NYSE or NYSE American to join The Nasdaq Stock Market as well as 13 ETP switches, included in ETPs and other listings in the table above. More than $180 billion in global equity market capitalization switched to The Nasdaq Stock Market. Eligible IPO win rate only includes companies that meet quantitative Nasdaq listing standards.

We also offer listings on the exchanges that comprise Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic. For smaller companies and growth companies, we offer access to the financial markets through the Nasdaq First North alternative marketplaces. As of December 31, 2024, a total of 1,174 companies listed securities on our Nordic and Baltic exchanges.

Our European listing customers include companies, funds and governments. Customers issue securities in the form of cash equities, depository receipts, warrants, ETPs, convertibles, rights, options, bonds or fixed-income related products. In 2024, a total of 31 new companies listed on our Nordic and Baltic exchanges.

Index

Our Index business develops and licenses Nasdaq-branded indices and financial products. License fees for our trademark licenses vary by product based on a percentage of underlying assets, dollar value of a product issuance, number of products or number of contracts traded. We also license cash-settled options, futures and options on futures on our indices.

As of December 31, 2024, 401 ETPs listed on 28 exchanges in over 20 countries tracked a Nasdaq index and accounted for $647 billion in AUM. Our flagship index, the Nasdaq-100 Index, or NDX, includes the top 100 non-financial companies listed on The Nasdaq Stock Market. More than 150 ETPs worldwide track indices in the NDX ecosystem, which had over $520 billion in assets tracking the indices as of December 31, 2024, or 80% of total AUM.

We provide index data products based on Nasdaq indices. Index data products include our Global Index Data Service, which delivers real-time index values throughout the trading day, and Global Index Watch/Global Index File Delivery Service, which delivers daily and historical weightings and components data, corporate actions and a breadth of additional data for the indices that we operate.

Workflow & Insights

Workflow & Insights includes our analytics and corporate solutions products.

Our analytics products provide asset managers, investment consultants and institutional asset owners with information and analytics to make data-driven investment decisions, deploy their resources more productively, and provide liquidity solutions for private funds. Through our eVestment and Solovis platforms, 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.

The Nasdaq Fund Network and Nasdaq Data Link are additional platforms in our suite of investment data analytics offerings and data management tools. Nasdaq Fund Network gathers and distributes daily net asset values from over 50,000 funds and other investment vehicles across North America. Nasdaq Data Link strengthens our position as a leading source for financial, economic, and alternative datasets.

Corporate solutions serves both public and private companies and organizations through our Investor Relations Intelligence, Governance Solutions and Sustainability Solutions products. 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, and various non-profit organizations to hospitals and healthcare systems.

Our Investor Relations Intelligence offerings include a global team of expert consultants that deliver advisory services including Equity Surveillance & Shareholder Analysis, Investor Engagement and Perception Studies, as well as an industry-leading platform, Nasdaq IR Insight, to investor relations professionals and executive teams. These solutions allow investor relations officers and executives to better manage their investor relations programs, understand their investor base, target new investors, manage meetings and consume key data such as investor profiles, equity research, consensus estimates and news.

Through our Governance Solutions products, we provide an industry-leading board meeting management platform, Nasdaq Boardvantage, and consulting services that streamline the meeting process for board of directors and executive leadership teams and enable them to accelerate decision making and strengthen governance.

Our Sustainability Solutions includes consulting services and purpose built sustainability reporting software. Our advisory practice helps companies analyze, assess and action best practices as it relates to their sustainability programs. Nasdaq Metrio is our SaaS-based end-to-end sustainability reporting platform that enables corporates to collect, measure, disclose and communicate investor-grade, audited ESG data efficiently across dozens of raters, rankers and framework organizations to drive strategic outcomes and attract investors.

Financial Technology

The Financial Technology segment delivers world leading platforms that improve the liquidity, transparency and integrity of the global economy by architecting and operating the world’s best markets. This segment comprises Financial Crime Management Technology, Regulatory Technology and Capital Markets Technology businesses.

We are a leading global technology solutions provider and partner to exchanges, clearing organizations, central securities depositories, banks, brokers, buy-side firms and corporate businesses, and power more than 135 marketplaces (including those operated by Nasdaq) and regulators, in more than 55 countries. Our solutions can handle 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 by non-capital markets customers, as discussed further below.

Financial Crime Management Technology

Financial Crime Management Technology includes our Nasdaq Verafin solution which delivers a leading anti-financial crime platform improving the integrity and transparency of the financial world. Nasdaq Verafin provides a SaaS solution to financial institutions for fraud detection and management, AML and countering the financing of terrorism compliance and management, high-risk customer management, sanctions screening and management, and information sharing.

Nasdaq Verafin has leveraged AI for more than 20 years to deliver industry-leading financial crime management solutions, combining deep domain and technical expertise with consortium data. Nasdaq Verafin's comprehensive solutions help financial institutions tackle complex problems, including payments fraud targeting all payment channels.

Our innovative AI-based Targeted Typology Analytics solution examines a range of behavioral, transactional, third-party, and consortium insights for more effective detection of crimes with fewer false positives and high quality results.

Our Nasdaq Verafin solution provides the tools to help more than 2,600 North American financial institutions with regulatory compliance as well as detect, investigate and report money laundering and financial fraud.

Regulatory Technology

Regulatory Technology includes AxiomSL and surveillance solutions.

AxiomSL is a global leader in risk data management and regulatory reporting solutions for the financial industry, including banks, broker dealers and asset managers. Its unique enterprise data management platform delivers data lineage, risk aggregation, analytics, workflow automation, reconciliation, validation and audit functionality, as well as disclosures.

AxiomSL’s platform supports compliance across a wide range of global and local regulations and delivers solutions and services for financial regulatory reporting, liquidity, capital and credit, operations, trade and transaction reporting, and ESG reporting.

Our surveillance solutions include a SaaS platform designed for banks, brokers and other market participants to assist in complying with market rules, regulations and internal market surveillance policies and serves more than 170 clients. We also provide a solution to regulators and exchanges with a robust platform to manage cross-market, cross-asset and multi-venue surveillance. This offering powers surveillance for more than 50 exchanges and 18 regulators.

Capital Markets Technology

Capital Markets Technology includes our Calypso and market technology solutions as well as trade management services.

Calypso is a leading platform providing cross-asset, front-to-back trading, treasury, risk and collateral management solutions. The Calypso solution provides customers with a single platform designed to enable consolidation, innovation and growth. The platform supports front, middle and back office activities in exchange-traded and OTC instruments and supports multiple financial asset classes and the associated financial instruments. Calypso’s software application specializes in capital markets, investment management, risk management, clearing, collateral, treasury and liquidity management.

The Calypso platform, leveraging modern technology, is versatile and serves customers across different industries, including banks, central banks, buy-side clients, government-sponsored entities and corporate clients, and can quickly adapt to changing paradigms including new asset classes, regulations, trading venues, and trading and processing workflows.

Nasdaq’s market technology solutions are utilized by leading markets in North America, Europe, Asia, Middle East, Latin America and Africa. These solutions can handle 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 by non-capital markets customers. We continue to develop our SaaS business portfolio by extending and migrating our current offerings to SaaS.

We provide and deliver mission-critical solutions to market infrastructure operators, which include exchanges, regulators, clearinghouses and central securities depositories. These solutions are designed to cover all aspects of a market operator’s needs, from trading and clearing to risk management, index development, data, management, testing and quality assurance.

In addition to serving the market operators in the core capital markets, there is a demand for mission critical solutions to enable robust operation of new emerging asset classes such as crypto currencies and native digital markets. Our market technology business currently offers its services to several digital assets exchanges, and the SaaS-based Marketplace Services Platform provides next-generation marketplace capabilities spanning the transaction lifecycle to facilitate the exchange of assets, services and information across various types of market ecosystems and machine-to-machine transactions.

Our market technology business also provides complex delivery management and systems integration. Through our integration services, we can assume responsibility for projects that involve migration to a new system and the establishment of entirely new marketplaces. We also offer operation and support for the applications, systems platforms, networks and other components included in an information technology solution, as well as advisory services.

Our trade management services provide market participants with a wide variety of alternatives for connecting to and accessing our markets for a fee. Our marketplaces may be accessed via a number of different protocols used for quoting, order entry, trade reporting and connectivity to various data feeds. WorkX, a web-based, front-end interface allows market participants to view data, utilize risk management tools, and submit and review trade reports. WorkX enables a seamless workflow and enhanced trade intelligence. In addition, we offer a variety of add-on compliance tools to help market participants 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 certain data centers using millimeter wave and microwave technology.

Market Services

Our Market Services segment includes our equity derivative trading and clearing, cash equity trading, fixed income, currency and commodities trading. We operate 19 exchanges across several asset classes, including derivatives, commodities, cash equity, debt, structured products and ETPs.

We provide trading services in North America and Europe. In the U.S., we operate six options exchanges: Nasdaq PHLX, The Nasdaq Options Market, Nasdaq BX Options, Nasdaq ISE, Nasdaq GEMX and Nasdaq MRX. These exchanges facilitate the trading of equity, ETF, index and foreign currency options. Our combined options market share in 2024 represented the largest share of the U.S. market for multi-listed equity options. Our options trading platforms provide trading opportunities to retail investors, algorithmic trading firms and market makers, who tend to prefer electronic trading, and institutional investors, who typically require high touch services to execute their trades, which are often performed on our trading floor in Philadelphia.

We also operate three cash equity exchanges: The Nasdaq Stock Market, Nasdaq BX and Nasdaq PSX. Our U.S. cash equity exchanges offer trading of both Nasdaq-listed and non-Nasdaq-listed securities. The Nasdaq Stock Market is the largest single venue of liquidity for trading U.S.-listed cash equities. Market participants include market makers, broker-dealers, ATSs, institutional investors, and registered securities exchanges. We also operate a U.S. corporate bond exchange for the listing of corporate bonds.

Our Market Services segment also includes revenues from U.S. Tape plans. The plan administrators sell quotation and last sale information for all transactions, whether traded on The Nasdaq Stock Market or other exchanges, to market participants and to data distributors, who then provide the information to subscribers. After deducting costs, the plan administrators distribute the tape revenues to the respective plan participants based on a formula required by Regulation NMS that takes into account both trading and quoting activity.

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 Tallinn (Estonia), Riga (Latvia) and Vilnius (Lithuania) as Nasdaq Baltic and exchanges in Stockholm (Sweden), Copenhagen (Denmark), Helsinki (Finland), and Reykjavik (Iceland) together with the clearing operations of Nasdaq Clearing, as Nasdaq Nordic.

Collectively, the Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic exchanges 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. Our platform allows the exchanges to share the same trading system, which enables efficient cross-border trading and settlement, cross-exchange membership and a single source for Nordic data products. Settlement and registration of cash equity trading takes place in Sweden, Finland, and Denmark via the local central securities depositories. In addition, Nasdaq owns a central securities depository that provides notary, settlement, central maintenance and other services in the Baltic countries and Iceland.

In Europe, Nasdaq Nordic offers trading in derivatives, such as stock options and futures and index options and futures. Nasdaq Clearing offers CCP clearing services for stock options and futures and index options and futures.

Nasdaq Fixed Income, or NFI, 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 is the largest bond listing venue in the Nordics, with more than 5,600 listed retail and institutional bonds. In addition, Nasdaq Nordic facilitates the trading and clearing of Nordic fixed income derivatives in a unique market structure. Buyers and sellers agree to trades in fixed income derivatives through bilateral negotiations and then report those trades to Nasdaq Clearing. Nasdaq Clearing offers CCP clearing services for fixed-income options and futures and interest rate swaps. Nasdaq Clearing also operates a clearing service for the resale and repurchase agreement market.

Nasdaq Commodities is the brand name for Nasdaq’s European commodity-related products and services such as trading and clearing. Nasdaq Commodities’ offerings include derivatives in power, natural gas and carbon emission

markets, seafood and electricity certificates. These products are listed on Nasdaq Oslo ASA, except for seafood, which is listed on Fish Pool, a third-party platform. In June 2023, we entered into an agreement to sell our Nordic power trading and clearing business, which was subsequently terminated in June 2024. In January 2025, we entered into a new agreement to transfer existing open positions in our Nordic power derivatives trading and clearing business to a European exchange. The completion of this transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals. Additionally, beginning in January 2025, Nasdaq no longer offered seafood derivatives clearing.

Nasdaq Oslo ASA is the commodity derivatives exchange for European products. All trades with Nasdaq Oslo ASA are subject to clearing with Nasdaq Clearing, which offers CCP clearing services for commodities options and futures.

We also own a majority stake in Puro.earth, a Finnish-based leading platform for carbon removal. Puro.earth offers engineered carbon removal instruments that are verified and tradable through an open, online platform. Puro.earth’s marketplace capabilities add to our suite of sustainability-focused technologies and workflow solutions and give our clients further resources to achieve their sustainability objectives.

ENABLERS, DIFFERENTIATORS AND COMPETITION

Technology

Technology plays a key role in ensuring the growth, reliability and regulation of financial markets. We have established a technology risk program to evaluate the resiliency of critical systems, including risks associated with cybersecurity. This program is focused on identifying areas for improvement in systems, and implementing changes and upgrades to technology and processes to minimize future risk. We have continued our focus on improving the security of our technology with an emphasis on employee awareness through training, targeted phishing education campaigns, and new tool deployment for our securities operations team. See “Item 1A. Risk Factors” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for further discussion.

We are focused on amplifying the impact that AI has on the business and in our products. We continue to develop products and services using AI, including generative AI, and the use of AI in product development remains a priority for us in 2025. We are currently leveraging AI to further develop products and solutions in areas such as investment analytics, investor relations and fraud and anti-money laundering, as well as to modernize markets with the SEC approval of the first AI-powered order type. For example, we are working on developing AI systems to track financial transactions across the ecosystem to determine potential fraud, money laundering, or other actions. These solutions can be utilized by our clients, including banks, other exchanges and brokers firms that use our solutions to reduce or eliminate threats.

We are committed to the ethical and responsible use of AI in our products, services and business operations. Our AI governance structure aligns the application of AI with our core values through a framework that addresses the new and unique risks that AI technology presents, while enabling us to explore innovation and take advantage of opportunities that AI presents to better serve our customers, advance our business objectives and bring value to our shareholders. Our AI governance framework applies risk management across AI-related product development and business usage in the company through a multi-disciplinary approach. The framework puts into practice Nasdaq’s responsible AI usage principles and considers the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology AI Risk Management Framework. It is administered through company-wide policies, procedures and supporting preventative and detective controls.

We believe that our focus on AI to enhance features of our existing offerings and in the development of new solutions, together with our significant proprietary data sets and our use of AI to drive internal operating efficiencies, provides us with a competitive advantage.

During 2024, Nasdaq continued its shift from traditional on-premises deployments by utilizing and deploying cloud infrastructure. We believe that migrating our exchanges to the cloud, through our partnership with AWS, will result in improved performance and increased flexibility for our customers. We expect to move additional markets to the cloud with AWS during the next several years. The shift to cloud-based markets enables Nasdaq to provide its clients access to enhanced capabilities, including virtual connectivity services, market analytics and machine learning. We also expect to continue to leverage the cloud-based infrastructure for our market technology clients, assisting such clients in developing their own platforms and customizing their offerings for their local, rapidly changing industry dynamics. Additionally, we expanded our existing colocation facility to meet the growing demand of market participants that seek proximity to the Nasdaq trading systems. Our expanded and enhanced facility is designed to provide the optimal environment for the next generation of compute workloads and offer clients access to a wider range of services and capabilities.

To facilitate the exchange migration to AWS, Nasdaq will also leverage its Fusion technology platform. Fusion positions Nasdaq’s North American and European markets to manage, operate and deploy a common platform that can be used across our nine Nasdaq derivative markets, while enabling our markets for cloud deployment.

Competitive Strengths

We are a global, client-focused technology company with expertise in markets and financial technology. We deploy robust technology capabilities and have developed innovative solutions to further address client needs across the financial ecosystem. Our business segments complement each other and we believe that our strong competitive position in large, high-growth markets positions us for sustained growth.

Our Value Proposition

We operate leading platforms that can improve the liquidity, transparency, and integrity of the global financial ecosystem, allowing us to:

• Develop efficient and reliable technologies to facilitate and protect the financial system across asset classes;

• Empower our clients to effectively navigate the capital markets, achieve their sustainability goals, and maintain corporate governance excellence; and

• Provide data, tools and insights that drive sound decision making while complying with evolving regulatory requirements.

Technological Strength

The strength and resiliency of our technology, enhanced by our Financial Technology segment, in meeting the advancing demands of our global customer base is vital to the continued success of our business and distinguishes us from our competitors.

We strive to be a trusted partner to a diverse range of clients that participate across the global financial ecosystem, including:

• Banks and Financial Institutions: Providing banks and financial institutions with safety and integrity through a suite of trade surveillance, cloud-native fraud and anti-money laundering solutions and robust regulatory reporting software.

• Market Infrastructure Operators: Assisting market infrastructure operators in increasing efficiency, meeting customer needs, and growing revenue across the trade lifecycle.

• Brokers and Traders: Helping brokers and traders to confidently plan, optimize, manage risk and execute their business vision.

• Market Participants: Providing market participants with access to liquidity and enabling them to efficiently consume, monitor, analyze, and capitalize on real-time market changes.

• Listed Companies: Enabling companies to access capital markets effectively, manage stakeholders and leverage technology to operate and govern effectively.

• Investors and Asset Managers: Offering products and services to assist investors and asset managers in optimizing their portfolios and offerings.

Competition

Capital Access Platforms

Our Data business includes proprietary data products. Proprietary data products are made up exclusively of data derived from each exchange’s systems. Competition in the data business is influenced by rapidly changing technology and the creation of new product and service offerings.

Our proprietary data products face competition globally from alternative exchanges and trading venues that offer similar products. Our data business competes with other exchanges and third-party vendors to provide information to market participants.

Our Listing Services business in both the U.S. and Europe provides a means of facilitating capital formation through public capital markets. There are competing ways of raising capital, and we seek to demonstrate the benefits of listing shares on our exchange. Our primary competitor for larger company stock share listings in the U.S. is NYSE. The Nasdaq Stock Market competes with local and international markets located outside the U.S. for listings of equity securities of both U.S. and non-U.S. companies that choose to list (or dual-list) outside of their home country. For example, The Nasdaq Stock Market competes for listings with exchanges in Europe and Asia. Additionally, we face competition from private equity firms that may elect to keep their portfolio companies as private companies.

The Listings Services business in Europe is characterized by a large number of exchanges competing for new or secondary listings. Each country has one or more national exchanges, which are often the first choice of companies in each respective country. For those considering an alternative, competing European exchanges that frequently attract many listings from outside their respective home countries include LSE, Euronext N.V. and Deutsche Börse AG. In addition to the larger exchanges, companies seeking capital or liquidity from public capital markets are able to raise capital without a regulated market listing and can consider trading their shares on smaller markets and quoting facilities.

Our Index business offers Nasdaq-branded indices and financial products and faces competition from providers of various competing financial indices. For example, there are a number of indices that aim to track the technology sector and thereby compete with the Nasdaq-100 Index and the Nasdaq Composite Index. We face competition from investment banks, dedicated index providers, markets and other product developers, including S&P Dow Jones Indices, MSCI and FTSE Russell.

Workflow & Insights includes our analytics and corporate solutions businesses. Our analytics business faces competition from a broad array of data and analytics suppliers, both established firms and small start-ups.

Our corporate solutions business faces competition that can be varied and fragmented. Other exchange operators are partnering with firms that have capabilities in this area and seeking to acquire relevant assets in order to provide investor relations services to customers alongside listing services. Our Sustainability Solutions, including Nasdaq Metrio and sustainability consulting services, are positioned in evolving markets with competitors offering multiple point solutions providing software, data or consulting services. Our Governance Solutions products compete against a wide range of companies that vary by customer segment and geography.

Financial Technology

For our Financial Crime Management Technology and trade and market surveillance businesses, competitors include core banking solution providers ranging from small to large, independent solution providers, FinTech start-ups and in-house custom builds. We compete against enterprise solution providers and point solutions for clients with larger AUM. Competitors also include companies that serve multiple industries in addition to financial services with generalized solutions, such as business intelligence tools, data integrators, investigation platforms and software covering the broader compliance lifecycle. Recently, there has been an increase of FinTech start-ups shifting into the surveillance, fraud detection and AML space offering highly-specialized solutions for advanced data analytics, AI and machine learning technology. The Financial Crime Management Technology and surveillance offerings compete on a number of factors, including but not limited to, increased workflow efficiency, quality of the data, quality of alerts and pricing.

Our Financial Crime Management Technology and surveillance offerings must demonstrate the ability to decrease false-positives and provide in-depth views into potential abuses and risks that stem from those cases. These offerings help firms reduce both the reputational and regulatory risk as well as the complexity in efforts to keep markets and financial institutions safe.

Competitors to our AxiomSL solutions, which includes financial, statistical and prudential reporting as well as shareholder disclosures, trade reporting and ESG reporting, include large independent solution providers, in-house solutions at financial institutions as well as some smaller independent point solution providers. As regulatory reporting becomes more granular and time sensitive, the ability of our platform to operate with speed at scale, and with consistency across functional business domains continues to set AxiomSL apart.

Competitors to our Calypso product, which includes solutions for cross-asset, front-to-back trading, treasury, risk and collateral management, include enterprise solution providers as well as local and regional providers focusing on smaller clients. Competition among larger clients, such as global banks, typically includes internally developed solutions. Other competitors include point solution companies, such as pricing library providers, and post-trade service providers.

Our market technology business faces competition from exchanges and exchange-related businesses that internally develop their technology. This model has gradually changed as many operators have recognized the cost-savings made possible by buying technology from third parties. As a result, two types of competitors have emerged in our market technology business: exchange operators and technology providers unaffiliated with exchanges. These organizations make available a range of off-the-shelf technology, including trading, clearing, settlement, depository and information dissemination, and offer customization and operation

expertise. Market conditions in market technology are evolving rapidly, which makes continuous investment and innovation a necessity. Our partnership with AWS enables us to compete with other companies that are developing cloud-based exchanges and market technology offerings.

Our trade management services business competes with other exchange operators, extranet providers, and data center providers.

Market Services

We face intense competition in North America and Europe. We seek to provide market participants with greater functionality, trading system stability and performance, high levels of customer service, and efficient pricing. In both North America and Europe, our competitors include other exchange operators, operators of non-exchange trading systems and banks and brokerages that operate their own internal trading pools and platforms.

In the U.S., our options markets compete with exchanges operated by Cboe Global Markets, Inc., or Cboe, Miami International Holdings, Inc., or MIAX, Intercontinental Exchange, Inc., or ICE, Members Exchange and BOX Options Market. In the U.S., our cash equities markets compete with exchanges operated by Cboe, ICE, MIAX, The Investors Exchange, Members Exchange and Long Term Stock Exchange. We also face competition from ATSs, known as “dark pools,” and other less-heavily regulated broker-owned trade facilitation systems, as well as from other types of OTC trading. In Canada, our cash equities exchange competes principally with exchanges such as the Toronto Stock Exchange, or TSX.

Our U.S. Tape plans earn revenue from consolidated data products which are distributed by SEC-mandated consolidators (one for Nasdaq-listed stocks and another for NYSE and other-listed stocks) that share the revenue among the exchanges that contribute data. The consolidated data business is under competitive pressure from other securities exchanges that trade Nasdaq-listed securities. In addition, The Nasdaq Stock Market similarly competes for the tape fees from the sale of information on securities listed on other markets.

In Europe, our cash equities markets compete with exchanges such as Euronext N.V., Deutsche Börse AG, London Stock Exchange Group plc, or LSE, and many Multilateral Trading Facilities, or MTFs, such as Cboe, Turquoise and Aquis. Our competitors in the trading and clearing of options and futures on European equities include Eurex, Cboe, ICE Futures Europe and London Clearing House, or LCH. In addition, in equities markets in Europe, we face competition from other broker-owned systems, dark pools, Systematic Internalizers, or SIs, and other types of OTC trading. Competition among exchanges for trading European equity derivatives tends to occur where there is competition in the trading of the underlying equities. In addition to exchange-based competition, we face competition from OTC derivative markets.

The implementation of MiFID II and MiFIR has resulted in further competitive pressure on our European trading business. SIs are attracting a significant share of electronically matched volume and compete aggressively for the trading of equity securities listed on our Nordic exchanges. Different bilateral trading systems pursuing block business also remain active in Europe.

Our European fixed income and commodities products and services are subject to competitive pressure from European exchanges and clearinghouses.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

We believe that our intellectual property assets are important for maintaining the competitive differentiation of our products, systems, software and services, enhancing our ability to access technology of third parties and maximizing our return on research and development investments.

To support our business objectives and benefit from our investments in research and development, we actively create and maintain a wide array of intellectual property assets, including patents and patent applications related to our innovations, products and services; trademarks related to our brands, products and services; copyrights in software and creative content; trade secrets; and through other intellectual property rights, licenses of various kinds and contractual provisions. We enter into confidentiality and invention assignment agreements with our employees and contractors, and utilize non-disclosure agreements with third parties with whom we conduct business in order to secure and protect our proprietary rights and to limit access to, and disclosure of, our proprietary information.

We own, or have licensed, rights to trade names, trademarks, domain names and service marks that we use in conjunction with our operations and services. We have registered many of our most important trademarks in the U.S. and in foreign countries. For example, our primary “Nasdaq” mark is a registered trademark that we actively seek to protect in the U.S. and in over 50 other countries worldwide.

Over time, we have accumulated a robust portfolio of issued patents in the U.S. and in many other jurisdictions across the world. We currently hold rights to patents relating to certain aspects of our products, systems, software and services, but we primarily rely on the innovative skills, technical competence and marketing abilities of our personnel. No single patent is in itself core to the operations of Nasdaq or any of its principal business areas.

CORPORATE VENTURE PROGRAM

We operate a corporate venture program to make minority investments primarily in emerging growth FinTech companies that are strategically relevant to, and aligned with, Nasdaq. Investments are made through the venture program to further our research and development efforts and accelerate the path to commercial viability. We expect that capital invested will continue to be modest and will not have a material impact on our consolidated financial statements, existing capital return or deployment priorities. Since its inception in 2017, our venture program has grown in size and has invested in companies covering various sectors, including data, analytics and workflow technologies, blockchain and digital assets, market infrastructure, anti-financial crime, new marketplaces and enabling technologies. As of December 31, 2024, our investments, which primarily include equity and convertible debt investments, were valued at $218 million.

ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL AND GOVERNANCE MATTERS

Nasdaq is committed to our long-term governance and sustainability strategy, advocacy and oversight. We continue to engage with internal and external stakeholders at all levels regarding sustainability matters. During 2024, we continued our corporate, community and commercial ESG efforts, including furthering our commitment to climate change awareness, reducing our environmental impact, building a workplace culture of inclusivity and evolving our portfolio of sustainability-related solutions and services.

The Nominating & ESG Committee has formal responsibility and oversight for corporate ESG policies and programs and receives regular reports on key ESG matters and initiatives. Our Corporate ESG Steering Committee serves as the central coordinating body for our ESG strategy; it is co-chaired by executive leaders and comprised of a cross-functional group of Nasdaq senior executives.

We continued to be committed to our decarbonization and climate strategy. We have taken steps to achieve carbon neutrality across all our business operations for the seventh consecutive year after we retire our remaining carbon offsets for 2024 by the third quarter of 2025. We are working towards our short- and long-term net-zero science-based targets, which were validated and approved by the Science Based Targets initiative in 2022. In 2024, we were named to the Dow Jones Best-in-Class World Index for the first time, the Dow Jones Best-in-Class North America Index for the ninth consecutive year and Just Capital’s Just100 list of America’s most just companies for the second consecutive year. In addition, Nasdaq maintained industry leading scores from ESG rating agencies, including a rating of “AA,” from MSCI placing Nasdaq in MSCI’s “Leaders” category.

Our environmental footprint is relatively small due to the nature of our business operations. We remain committed to reducing our environmental impact, focusing on several key areas, including our energy use, the management of our workspaces and how we conduct business travel, and engagement with our value chain. We seek to reduce our atmospheric carbon emissions and we manage our water use and the waste associated with our business operations.

We help companies of all maturity levels through our robust combination of technology, tools, data, insights and capital market solutions.

Our sustainability-focused solutions are centered around three strategic pillars to meet our audience’s needs in a rapidly evolving market:

• Regulatory-focused Workflows: A powerful, built-for-purpose sustainability data management platform with user-friendly workflows for the most impactful regulation and climate strategy needs.

• AI-powered Insights: Proprietary insights powered by trusted data sources and generative AI to provide our users with a better lens to make faster sustainability decisions.

• In-house Expertise: In-house sustainability expertise combined with technology to provide full-service support to organizations navigating global compliance requirements, while also monitoring the capital markets.

During 2024, we also maintained, and continued to expand, our portfolio of sustainability services and solutions for our clients and stakeholders.

In 2024, we requested our existing leading suppliers by spend to attest to our Supplier Code of Ethics. The Supplier Code of Ethics, which is available on our website, encourages our suppliers and vendors to adopt sustainability and environmental practices in line with our published Environmental Practices Statement. Additionally, our new suppliers are required to attest to the Supplier Code of Ethics in connection with the commencement of their engagement.

REGULATION

We are subject to extensive regulation in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

U.S. Regulation

U.S. federal securities laws establish a system of cooperative regulation of securities markets, market participants and listed companies. SROs conduct the day-to-day administration and regulation of the nation’s securities markets under the close supervision of, and subject to extensive regulation, oversight and enforcement by, the SEC. SROs, such as national securities exchanges, are registered with the SEC.

This regulatory framework applies to our U.S. business in the following ways:

National Securities Exchanges. SROs in the securities industry are an essential component of the regulatory scheme of the Exchange Act responsible for providing fair and orderly markets and protecting investors. The Exchange Act and the rules thereunder, as well as each SRO’s own rules, impose many regulatory and operational responsibilities on SROs, including the day-to-day responsibilities for market and broker-dealer oversight. Moreover, an SRO is responsible for enforcing compliance by its members, and persons associated with its members, with the provisions of the Exchange Act, the rules and regulations thereunder, and the rules of the SRO, including rules and regulations governing the business conduct of its members.

Nasdaq currently operates three cash equity, six options markets and one corporate bond market in the U.S. We operate The Nasdaq Stock Market, The Nasdaq Options Market and the Corporate Bond Market pursuant to The Nasdaq Stock Market’s SRO license; Nasdaq BX and Nasdaq BX Options pursuant to Nasdaq BX’s SRO license; Nasdaq PSX and Nasdaq PHLX pursuant to Nasdaq PHLX’s SRO license; and Nasdaq ISE, Nasdaq GEMX and Nasdaq MRX, each of which operates an options market under its own SRO license. As SROs, each entity has separate rules pertaining to its broker-dealer members and listed companies, as applicable. Broker-dealers that choose to become members of our exchanges are subject to the rules of those exchanges.

All of our U.S. national securities exchanges are subject to SEC oversight, as prescribed by the Exchange Act, including periodic and special examinations by the SEC. Our exchanges also are potentially subject to regulatory or legal action by the SEC at any time in connection with alleged regulatory violations. We have been subject to a number of routine reviews and inspections by the SEC or external auditors in the ordinary course, and we have been and may in the future be subject to SEC enforcement proceedings. To the extent such actions or reviews and inspections result in regulatory or other changes, we may be required to modify the manner in which we conduct our business, which may adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition.

Section 19 of the Exchange Act provides that our exchanges must submit to the SEC proposed changes to any of the SROs’ rules, practices and procedures, including revisions to provisions of our certificate of incorporation and by-laws that constitute SRO rules. The SEC will typically publish such proposed changes for public comment, after which the SEC may approve or disapprove the proposal, as it deems appropriate. SEC approval requires a finding by the SEC that the proposal is consistent with the requirements of the Exchange Act and the rules and regulations thereunder. Pursuant to the requirements of the Exchange Act, our exchanges must file with and seek approval from the SEC for, among other things, all proposals to change their pricing structure.

Nasdaq conducts real-time market monitoring, certain equity surveillance not involving cross-market activity, most options surveillance, rulemaking, enforcement and membership functions through our Nasdaq Regulation department. We review suspicious trading behavior discovered by our regulatory staff, and depending on the nature of the activity, may refer the activity to FINRA for further investigation. Pursuant to regulatory services agreements between FINRA and our SROs, FINRA provides certain regulatory services to our markets, including some regulation of trading activity and surveillance and investigative functions. Our SROs retain ultimate regulatory responsibility for all regulatory activities performed under regulatory agreements by FINRA, and for fulfilling all regulatory obligations for which FINRA does not have responsibility under the regulatory services agreements.

In addition to its other SRO responsibilities, The Nasdaq Stock Market, as a listing market, also is responsible for overseeing each listed company’s compliance with The Nasdaq Stock Market’s financial and corporate governance standards. Our listing qualifications department evaluates applications submitted by issuers seeking to list their securities on The Nasdaq Stock Market to determine whether the quantitative and qualitative listing standards have been satisfied. Once securities are listed, the listing qualifications department monitors each issuer’s on-going compliance with The Nasdaq Stock Market’s continued listing standards.

Broker-dealer regulation. Nasdaq’s broker-dealer subsidiaries are subject to regulation by the SEC, the SROs and various state securities regulators. Nasdaq operates three broker-dealers: Nasdaq Execution Services, LLC, NFSTX, LLC, and Nasdaq Capital Markets Advisory LLC. Each broker-dealer is registered with the SEC, a member of FINRA and registered in the U.S. states and territories required by the operation of its business. In addition, we own a minority interest in NPM.

Nasdaq Execution Services operates as our routing broker for sending orders from Nasdaq’s U.S. cash equity and options exchanges to other venues for execution. NFSTX is a registered ATS and acts as an intermediary to facilitate secondary transactions in certain funds (both registered or not registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940), business development companies, certain closed-end funds and private real estate investment funds. Nasdaq Capital Markets Advisory acts as a third-party advisor to privately-held or publicly-traded companies during IPOs and various other offerings.

The SEC, FINRA and SROs adopt, and require strict compliance with, rules and regulations applicable to broker-dealers. The SEC, SROs and state securities commissions may conduct administrative proceedings which can result in censures, fines, the issuance of cease-and-desist orders or the suspension or expulsion of a broker-dealer, its officers or employees. The SEC and state regulators may also institute proceedings against broker-dealers seeking an injunction or other sanction. All broker-dealers have an SRO that is

assigned by the SEC as the broker-dealer’s Designated Examining Authority. The Designated Examining Authority is responsible for examining a broker-dealer for compliance with the SEC’s financial responsibility rules. FINRA is the current Designated Examining Authority for each of our broker-dealer subsidiaries.

Our registered broker-dealers are subject to regulatory requirements intended to ensure their general financial soundness and liquidity, which require that they comply with certain minimum capital requirements. As of December 31, 2024, each of our broker-dealers were in compliance with applicable capital requirements.

Regulatory contractual relationships with FINRA. Our SROs have signed a series of regulatory service agreements covering the services FINRA provides to the respective SROs. Under these agreements, FINRA personnel act as our agents in performing the regulatory functions outlined above, and FINRA bills us a fee for these services. These agreements ensure that the markets for which we are responsible are properly regulated. In conjunction with these agreements, we also perform certain of these functions ourselves. In addition, our SROs retain ultimate regulatory responsibility for all regulatory activities performed under these agreements by FINRA.

Exchange Act Rule 17d-2 permits SROs to enter into agreements, commonly called Rule 17d-2 agreements, approved by the SEC with respect to enforcement of common rules relating to common members. Our SROs have entered into several such agreements under which FINRA assumes regulatory responsibility for various rules or areas covered by agreements.

Regulation NMS and Options Intermarket Linkage Plan. We are subject to Regulation NMS for our cash equity markets, and our options markets have joined the Options Intermarket Linkage Plan. These are designed to facilitate the routing of orders among exchanges to create a national market system as mandated by the Exchange Act. One of the principal purposes of a national market system is to ensure that brokers may execute investors’ orders at the best market price. Both Regulation NMS and the Options Intermarket Linkage Plan require that exchanges avoid trade-throughs, locking or crossing of markets and provide market participants with electronic access to the best prices among the markets for the applicable cash equity or options order.

In addition, Regulation NMS requires that every national securities exchange on which an NMS stock is traded and every national securities association act jointly pursuant to one or more national market system plans to disseminate consolidated information, including a national best bid and national best offer, on quotations for transactions in NMS stocks, and that such plan or plans provide for the dissemination of all consolidated information for an individual NMS stock through a single plan processor.

The UTP Plan was filed with and approved by the SEC as a national market system plan in accordance with the Exchange Act and Regulation NMS to provide for the collection, consolidation and dissemination of such information for Nasdaq-listed securities. The Nasdaq Stock Market serves as the processor for the UTP Plan pursuant to a contract for a two-year term through October 2025. The Nasdaq Stock Market also serves as the administrator for the UTP Plan. To fulfill its obligations as the processor, The Nasdaq Stock Market has designed, implemented, maintained, and operated a data processing and communications system, hardware, software and communications infrastructure to provide processing for the UTP Plan. As the administrator, The Nasdaq Stock Market manages the distribution of market data, the collection of the resulting market data revenue, and the dissemination of that revenue to plan members in accordance with the terms of the UTP Plan and of Regulation NMS.

Regulation SCI. Regulation SCI is a set of rules designed to strengthen the technology infrastructure of the U.S. securities markets. Regulation SCI applies to national securities exchanges, operators of certain ATSs, market data information providers and clearing agencies, subjecting these entities to extensive compliance obligations, with the goals of reducing the occurrence of technical issues that disrupt the securities markets and improving recovery time when disruptions occur. We implemented an inter-disciplinary program to ensure compliance with Regulation SCI. We have also created Regulation SCI policies and procedures, updated internal policies and procedures, and developed an information technology governance program to ensure compliance.

Regulation of Registered Investment Advisor Subsidiary. Our subsidiary Nasdaq Dorsey Wright, or NDW, is an investment advisor registered with the SEC under the Investment Advisors Act of 1940. In this capacity, NDW is subject to oversight and inspections by the SEC. Among other things, registered investment advisors like NDW must comply with certain disclosure obligations, advertising and fee restrictions and requirements relating to client suitability and custody of funds and securities. Registered investment advisors are also subject to anti-fraud provisions under both federal and state law.

CFTC Regulation. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act resulted in increased CFTC regulation of our use of certain regulated derivatives products, as well as the operations of some of our subsidiaries outside the U.S. and their customers.

Canadian Regulation

Regulation of Nasdaq Canada is performed by the Canadian Securities Administrators, an umbrella organization of Canada’s provincial and territorial securities regulators. As a recognized exchange in Ontario, Nasdaq Canada must comply with the terms and conditions of its exchange recognition order. While exempt from exchange recognition in each jurisdiction in Canada other than Ontario where

Nasdaq Canada carries on business, Nasdaq must also comply with the terms and conditions of an exemption order granted by the other jurisdictions in order to maintain its exemptive status. Oversight of the exchange is performed by Nasdaq Canada’s lead regulator, the Ontario Securities Commission.

Nasdaq Canada is subject to several national marketplace related instruments which set out requirements for marketplace operations, trading rules and managing electronic trading risk. Exchange terms and conditions include but are not limited to, requirements for governance, regulation, rules and rulemaking, fair access, conflict management and financial viability.

European Regulation

Regulation of our markets in the European Union and the European Economic Area focuses on matters relating to financial services, listing and trading of securities, clearing and settlement of securities and commodities, as well as issues related to market abuse.

We are subject to MiFID II and MiFIR, the European Union’s Market Abuse Regulation, which primarily affects our European trading businesses. Many of the provisions of MiFID II and MiFIR are implemented through technical standards drafted by the European Securities and Markets Authority and approved by the European Commission. In addition, in 2016, the European Union adopted legislation on governance and control of the production and use of benchmark indices. The Benchmark Regulation became effective in the European Union beginning in 2018, and Nasdaq must comply beginning January 1, 2026 in relation to benchmarks provided by non-European Nasdaq entities as well as European Nasdaq entities. As the regulatory environment continues to evolve and related opportunities arise, we intend to continue developing our products and services to ensure that the exchanges and clearinghouse that comprise Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic maintain favorable liquidity and offer fair and efficient trading.

In addition, proposed rules under MiFID II and MiFIR rules include provisions potentially impacting various parts of Nasdaq’s exchanges and data business, including a proposal to establish a European consolidated tape of pre- and/or post-trade data.

The entities that operate trading venues in the Nordic and Baltic countries are each subject to local regulations. As a result, we have a strong local presence in each jurisdiction in which we operate regulated businesses. The regulated entities have decision-making power and can adopt policies and procedures and retain resources to manage all operations subject to their license. In Sweden, general supervision of the Nasdaq Stockholm exchange is carried out by the SFSA, while Nasdaq Clearing’s role as CCP in the clearing of derivatives is supervised by the SFSA and overseen by the Swedish central bank (Riksbanken). Additionally, as a function of the Swedish two-tier supervisory model, certain surveillance of the exchange market is carried out by the

Nasdaq Stockholm exchange, through its surveillance function.

Nasdaq Stockholm’s exchange activities are regulated primarily by the SSMA, which implements MiFID II into Swedish law and which sets up basic requirements for the board of directors of the exchange and the exchange’s share capital, and which also outlines the conditions on which exchange licenses are issued. The SSMA also provides that any changes to the exchange’s articles of association following initial registration must be approved by the SFSA. Nasdaq Clearing holds the license as a CCP under EMIR.

The SSMA requires exchanges to conduct their activities in an honest, fair and professional manner, and in such a way as to maintain public confidence in the securities markets. When operating a regulated market, an exchange must apply the principles of free access (i.e., that each person which meets the requirements established by law and by the exchange may participate in trading), neutrality (i.e., that the exchange’s rules for the regulated market are applied in a consistent manner to all those who participate in trading) and transparency (i.e., that the participants must be given prompt, simultaneous and correct information concerning trading and that the general public must be given the opportunity to access this information). Additionally, the exchange operator must identify and manage the risks that may arise in its operations, use secure technical systems and identify and handle the conflicts of interest that may arise between the exchange or its owners’ interests and the interest in safeguarding effective risk management and secure technical systems. Similar requirements are set up by EMIR in relation to clearing operations.

The SSMA also contains the framework for both the SFSA’s supervisory work in relation to exchanges and clearinghouses and the surveillance to be carried out by the exchanges themselves. The latter includes the requirement that an exchange should have “an independent surveillance function with sufficient resources and powers to meet the exchange’s obligations.” That requires the exchange to, among other things, supervise trading and price information, compliance with laws, regulations and good market practice, participant compliance with trading participation rules, financial instrument compliance with relevant listing rules and the extent to which issuers meet their obligation to submit regular financial information to relevant authorities.

Due to the underlying EU regulation, the regulatory requirements in the other Nordic and Baltic countries in which a Nasdaq entity has a trading venue are similar to the requirements in Sweden described above. The supervisory authorities in Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, Finland and Norway all cooperate to safeguard effective and comprehensive supervision of the exchanges comprising Nasdaq Nordic and the systems operated by it, and to ensure a common supervisory approach.

Nasdaq owns a central securities depository known as Nasdaq CSD SE (Societas Europaea)¸ that provides notary, settlement, central maintenance and other services in the Baltic countries and in Iceland. Nasdaq CSD SE is licensed under the European Central Securities Depositories Regulation and is supervised by the respective regulatory institutions.

We operate a licensed exchange, Nasdaq Oslo ASA, in Norway that trades and lists commodity derivatives. Although Norway is not a member of the EU, as a result of the European Economic Area, or EEA, agreement (entered into between the EU and European Free Trade Association) the regulatory environment is broadly similar to what applies in EU member states. Since Norway has adopted legislation mirroring the provisions of MiFID II and MIFIR, the regulatory environment in Norway is similar to Sweden. The Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway supervises the Norwegian exchange on an autonomous basis and the Norwegian exchange also has a separate market surveillance function overseen by the Financial Supervisory Authority.

Confidence in capital markets is paramount for trading to function properly. Nasdaq Nordic carries out market surveillance through an independent unit that is separate from the business operations. The surveillance work is conceptually organized into two functions: one for the review and admission of listing applications and surveillance activities related to issuers (issuer surveillance) and one for surveillance of trading (trading surveillance). The real-time trading surveillance for the Finnish, Icelandic, Danish and Swedish markets has been centralized in Stockholm. In addition, there are designated personnel who carry out surveillance activities at Nasdaq Oslo and the three Baltic exchanges. In Finland, Sweden and Estonia, decisions to list new companies on the main market are made by listing committees that have external members in addition to members from each respective exchange and in the other countries the decision is made either by the respective president of the exchange or by the executive board.

If there is suspicion that a listed company or member has acted in breach of exchange regulations, the matter is handled by the respective surveillance department. Serious breaches are considered by the respective disciplinary committee in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden and Norway. Suspected insider trading is reported to the appropriate authorities in the respective country.

In the United Kingdom, The Nasdaq Stock Market, Nasdaq Oslo ASA, Nasdaq Stockholm AB, Nasdaq Copenhagen A/S, and Nasdaq Helsinki Ltd are each subject to regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority as “Recognised Overseas Investment Exchanges.” Nasdaq Clearing is registered as a recognized third country CCP with the Bank of England under the temporary recognition regime. The registration became effective on December 31, 2020 and lasts until December 31, 2026 (which may be extended further), during which time Nasdaq Clearing may continue to act as a CCP vis-a-vis UK members. Nasdaq Clearing has submitted its application for permanent recognition and is awaiting further information as to the process and timeline from the Bank of England.

HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT

Nasdaq has continued to strengthen our commitment to, and investment in, attracting, retaining, developing and motivating our employees during 2024.

We also continued our efforts to create an inclusive work environment of equal opportunity, where employees feel respected and valued for their contributions, and where Nasdaq and its employees have opportunities to make positive contributions to our local communities.

Additional information regarding our human capital management matters can be found in our annual Sustainability Report, which will be available on our website later in 2025. Our Sustainability Report and other information on our website are not incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

As of December 31, 2024, Nasdaq had 9,162 full and part-time employees, including employees of non-wholly owned consolidated subsidiaries.

Flexible and Hybrid Workplace

Following the COVID pandemic, we re-shaped our expectations of the work environment. Most of our employees balance their time between several days in the office and several days working from home, contributing to a positive work-life balance. In addition to vacation time, we provide every employee six paid “flex” days per year, to be used as extra vacation days for mental health, family time, or any other purpose. We have found this flexibility has contributed both to our high engagement scores among current employees, as well as a positive element in attracting new talent to join Nasdaq.

Talent Management and Development

We continued to increase our efforts in attracting and retaining our employees. Nasdaq seeks to hire world-class and innovative talent across the globe.

In 2024, our internal employee engagement score, based on our biannual employee engagement surveys, which most recently had a 94% participation rate, reached its record high rating of 80% favorable, with 14% neutral, placing us in the top 10% of tech companies, according to our survey provider. Our workforce voluntary attrition rate during 2024 was approximately 6.7%, which was nearly one percentage point lower than 2023.

During 2024, we continued a series called the Manager Forum, facilitated by our CEO and other senior and mid-career leaders, to engage managers in sustained leadership development, alongside our existing formal leadership development curriculum.

Our AI-driven career development platform, the Career Hub, matches employees, based on their career aspirations, to internal training, potential mentors, short-term projects and full-time internal roles. This helped us again increase our career satisfaction scores in our biannual employee engagement survey and supported employee retention.

We have invested in professional development for our employees, including offering access to professional development programs; providing tuition assistance to employees enrolled in degree-granting academic programs; holding internal career fairs and career development programs; connecting employees to our formal mentoring programs and providing one-on-one professional coaching opportunities. Our 2024 AI training initiative saw 98% of the firm participating in at least one program to bolster their AI knowledge and skills.

To reward our employees at various stages of their tenure with Nasdaq, we continued our anniversary recognition program that includes Nasdaq-branded merchandise, and, for major milestones, recognition on our Nasdaq Tower in Times Square. Additionally, our peer-to-peer employee recognition program rewards employees and highlights recognized employees on our internal social media channels, further amplifying the recognition. In 2024, more than 18,600 peer-to-peer recognition awards were issued by employees to other employees across the organization.

A Culture of Inclusion

At Nasdaq, three pillars guide our inclusion efforts: Workforce, Workplace and Marketplace.

• Workforce seeks to ensure that our employee population is representative of the communities in which we operate.

• Workplace seeks to create a positive, equitable workplace experience for all employees of Nasdaq.

• Marketplace aims to positively influence our peers in the capital market ecosystem and invest in the local communities where we operate.

Workplace Demographics

Our global female employee base in 2024 was approximately 36%. Our minority representation in the U.S., which includes Asian, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, Multiracial, Native American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander employees, was 33% in 2024.

Gender and Ethnicity Data as of December 31, 2024 and 2023 are presented below:

• In the charts above, the "not disclosed" percentage includes employees that have chosen not to disclose and race and ethnicities that are less than 0.3% of our total employee headcount.

Compensation and Benefits

Our Total Rewards program is designed to attract, retain, and empower employees to successfully execute our growth strategy and our mission to better serve our clients. Our comprehensive Total Rewards program reflects our commitment to protecting our employees’ health, well-being and financial security.

Our pay-for-performance compensation programs includes market-competitive base salaries, annual bonuses or sales commissions, and equity grants. The majority of our employees are granted annual, long-term equity awards, enabling them to be owners of the company, committed to our long-term success and aligning their interests with the short-term and long-term interests of our shareholders.

Beyond compensation, we offer a suite of programs, benefits, perquisites, and resources. Our core benefits include health (medical, dental, and vision) and risk insurances (life and disability), retirement plans, and an employee stock purchase plan. We also offer robust paid time-off benefits which include vacation, incidental sick days and parental leave. In addition, all Nasdaq employees, regardless of their location in any of our global offices, are offered paid time off for key life events such as bereavement leave and volunteer days. Our North American employees continue to have access to our flexible time off policy. These programs, coupled with our hybrid work schedules, are designed to meet the various needs of our workforce.

In 2024, we continued to build awareness of our wellness programs and increase support to our employees through on-site and virtual events such as Wellness Week and World Mental Health Day. Wellness Week included six virtual webinars for U.S. employees to learn about the scope of wellness benefits offered. World Mental Health Day was a month-long campaign where managers and employees could participate in webinars to learn about mental health in the workplace. The benefits team also started “well-being moments,” which are monthly reminders shared in employee newsletters and town hall meetings to improve the physical, mental and financial health of our employees in their personal and professional life.

Community Involvement

Nasdaq’s “Purpose” initiative comprises our philanthropic, community outreach, entrepreneurial support and employee volunteerism programs, all designed to leverage our unique place at the center of capital creation, markets, and technology and drive stronger economies, more equitable opportunities and contribute to a more sustainable world. 

Through our Nasdaq GoodWorks Corporate Responsibility Program, we have committed to supporting the communities in which we live and work by providing eligible full and part-time employees with two paid days off per year to volunteer. We also match charitable donations of all Nasdaq employees and contractors up to $1,000, or more in certain circumstances, per calendar year. In 2024, Nasdaq employees raised over $550,000, including donations and matches, supporting more than 800 charities worldwide. 

During 2024, Nasdaq held its fourth annual Purpose Week, a week dedicated to celebrating and advancing economic progress for all. Throughout Purpose Week, we hosted employees from around the world for panels and workshops highlighting our continued purpose of advancing economic progress for all. Employees participated in a variety of activities, including packing Thanksgiving food kits, preparing financial literacy guidebooks and building solar lights for communities affected by natural disasters

Additionally, Nasdaq also hosted its second annual Purpose Forum in 2024, focusing on the theme “A Better Tomorrow: Built for Purpose.” The Purpose Forum convened thought leaders, change-makers, and innovators to discuss creating positive impact through embracing and adopting purpose-driven strategy, culture, and brand.

The Nasdaq Foundation works with organizations that promote and support under-resourced communities by reimagining investor engagement and equipping communities with the financial knowledge needed to share in the wealth that markets create. During 2024, the Nasdaq Foundation provided grants to 23 organizations that share that mission. These grants were awarded to, among others: The Legal Aid Society, which provides through its Community Development Project legal trainings and technical assistance to small businesses in New York City; Future Founders, which empowers entrepreneurs ages 18-30 to launch and grow their own businesses; and World Services for the Blind, in collaboration with Penny Forward, which will create the first investing courses specifically designed for people who are blind or have low vision.

NASDAQ WEBSITE AND AVAILABILITY OF SEC FILINGS

We file periodic reports, proxy statements and other information with the SEC. The SEC maintains a website that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC. The address of that site is www.sec.gov.

Our website is ir.nasdaq.com. Information on our website is not a part of this Form 10-K. We make available free of charge on our website, or provide a link to our SEC filings, including our Forms 10-K, Forms 10-Q and Forms 8-K and any amendments to these documents, that are filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish it to, the SEC. To access these filings, go to our website and click on “Financials” then click on “SEC Filings.”