by Scott Cooper, FISD Asia-Pacific Regional Representative & Partner, Saquish Partners

Chinese institutions are increasing their use of quantitative trading, particularly in the OTC markets. As the Chinese electronic trading community advances to the next level of market data consumption, delivery and connectivity for assets traded on multiple venues becomes more critical. Consequently, Chinese institutions are looking to better understand the processes and practices used in international markets for digital distribution systems and electronic trading architecture.

Their objectives are twofold:

• Learn how market data is acquired and consumed through digital distribution platforms
• Gain visibility into how this data is optimally communicated to applications for analysis and order and execution management systems for effective quantitative trading practices.

Chinese market participants want to bring together domain knowledge in market data and quantitative trading from leading interdealer brokers (IDBs), international exchanges and leading providers of connectivity to discuss the latest techniques in electronic trading as well as how trading venues interface and connect with quantitative trading users. Additionally, institutions in China want to learn more about the FISD Financial Industry Associate (FIA) certification as a means of market participants to establish credentials in the market data industry.

These are signs of a maturing market. One that requires resources with demonstrable domain knowledge capable of dealing with vendors and data services efficiently and effectively to develop solutions and applications that can be deployed internationally.

We also see Chinese government banks, leading IDBs, exchanges and vendors contributing to the acceleration of the development of better applications and trading systems. This will be done by identifying best practices and approaches for data acquisition, system integration and operating procedures for market participants.