From Russia With (Low) Latency

Last week Sibos in Toronto, this week TradeTech Russia, in Moscow. And once the trade exhibitions begin, the press releases hailing new triumphs inevitably follow. Such as this one about how Otkritie Capital, one of the largest financial groups in Russia, has partnered with QuantHouse, the leading provider of next generation trading solutions, to launch low latency market data for MICEX, the country’s main equity market, via the company’s QuantFEED solution. Still awake? Then read on...

“The collaboration allows Otkritie’s international clients a competitive advantage in terms of market data latency. This, in combination with Otkritie’s fastest order routing into Moscow, will give its clients the cutting-edge into the matching engine. It also opens up Russian securities to a broader investor audience with global participants being able to get Russian data through a consolidated feed.

“The demand for high speed technology from alternative venues, brokers and high frequency trading firms, has increased dramatically as they look to take advantage of the growth within the emerging markets. For example, between 2009 and 2011 trading in emerging markets securities increased from 5 to 20% on the LSE IOB, with all except for one of the top ten securities being Russian.

“QuantFEED, the company’s end-to-end ultra low latency market data feed, captures raw data from within the exchange, performs microsecond decoding and delivers normalised data through a single API (C++, Java or C#). Prior to this, Otkritie deployed standard FIX market data and API, for only Moscow clients. QuantFEED provides the balance between costs, development and latency.

“The next phase will be the launch of RTS market data, primarily the Russian derivatives market, before the end of 2011.”

Nils Jahn, managing director of global electronic trading at Otkritie Capital, commented: “The Russian market is relatively underdeveloped in terms of electronic trading while the demand for fast and efficient trade flows for Russia’s local exchanges is high. In combination with our network upgrades and expertise in multi-frequency trading solutions, the addition of a quality multi-market data feed, will give us a more complete offering to many latency sensitive clients and prospects.”

Stephane Leroy, head of global sales and marketing at QuantHouse, concluded: “It is clear that legacy systems are preventing financial firms from keeping pace with their competitors.  Investments needed to support these firms have limited their participation in Russia until now. This partnership is an efficient solution for anyone who wants to enter this market rapidly leveraging QuantHouse cutting-edge technology.”

If you've made it this far, then in the best tradition of the aerobics studio, give yourself a little round of applause, and go and lie down.