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S h o r t l i s t i n g T r a d e S u r v e i l l a n c e S o l u t i o n s
Anna Griem
September 2018
This authorized reprint was prepared for NICE Actimize, but the analysis
has not been changed, and the report was not sponsored by NICE Actimize.
For more information on the report, please contact Opimas
(www.opimas.com or [email protected]).
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 1
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
TABLE OF CONTENTS.............................................................................................................. 1
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................................................................................................... 2
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 4
CONSIDERATIONS FOR SUCCESSFUL SELECTIONS ...................................................... 7
BUY SIDE / SELL SIDE / MARKET OPERATOR SURVEILLANCE NEEDS................. 7
HOLISTIC SURVEILLANCE .................................................................................................. 8
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ..............................................................................................10
ADDITIONAL BUSINESS INSIGHTS ................................................................................11
COMPARING SURVEILLANCE VENDORS ........................................................................12
COMPETITION AMONGST SURVEILLANCE SOLUTIONS ........................................12
SOLUTION PROFILES .............................................................................................................18
ACA - DECRYPTEX ..............................................................................................................18
AQUIS TECHNOLOGIES – AQUIS MARKET SURVEILLANCE (AMS) ......................20
B-NEXT – CMC:ESUITE ......................................................................................................22
BAY STREET TECH ..............................................................................................................24
BEHAVOX..............................................................................................................................26
BLOOMBERG – BTCA AND BVAULT .............................................................................28
EFLOW – TZ MARKET ABUSE .........................................................................................31
FIS GLOBAL – PROTEGENT MARKET ABUSE .............................................................33
GMEX TECHNOLOGIES – FORUMDETECT ................................................................. 35
IRISIUM .................................................................................................................................. 36
ITIVITI - ANALYST ............................................................................................................... 38
KX SYSTEMS – KX FOR SURVEILLANCE ...................................................................... 39
LIQUIDMETRIX .................................................................................................................... 41
LSEG TECHNOLOGY – MILLENNIUM SURVEILLANCE ............................................ 42
NASDAQ SMARTS SURVEILLANCE................................................................................ 44
NICE ACTIMIZE – HOLISTIC SURVEILLANCE .............................................................. 45
ONEMARKETDATA – ONETICK TRADE SURVEILLANCE ........................................ 47
RIMES TECHNOLOGIES – REGFOCUS MARKET SURVEILLANCE AND MAR .... 49
SCILA – SCILA SURVEILLANCE ........................................................................................ 51
SIA - SIA EAGLE SURVEILLANCE .................................................................................... 52
SOFTWARE AG – APAMA EAGLEEYE ........................................................................... 53
THE TECHNANCIAL COMPANY - JANUS SUITE ........................................................ 55
TRADINGHUB - MARKET ABUSE SURVEILLANCE TOOL (MAST) ......................... 57
TRAPETS – INSTANTWATCH MARKET & OUTSOURCED TRADING
SURVEILLANCE .................................................................................................................... 59
TRILLIUM SURVEYOR ........................................................................................................ 61
LOOKING FORWARD ............................................................................................................ 63
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 2
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y
Market abuse survei l lance requirements vary
s ignif icantly by type of market part ic ipant , appl icable
regulat ions, and the trading strategies employed. To
assist with trade survei l lance vendor select ions, t his
report detai ls the leading market survei l lance providers
– as wel l as addit ional obl igat ions they are capable of
assist ing with, including: e -communications monitor ing,
voice survei l lance, trade reconstruct ion requirements,
and best execution report ing. This report also highl ights
novel ways in which solut ions are improving alert ing
methodologies, as wel l as providing addit ional bus iness
insights for the market part ic ipants they serve . Readers
are encouraged to use this report in order to quickly
create a short l ist of the vendors suited for further
considerat ion.
Even with Nasdaq SMARTS and NICE Actimize together
owning over half of the US$284mn spend on trade and
order survei l lance software , new entrants are
aggressively vy ing for business. While the market wi l l
l ikely experience further consol idat ion in the next 12-
18 months, new solut ions are pushing the qual ity of
survei l lance forward across the board. Establ ished
solut ions have, in several cases, adopted innovative
approaches that were f i rst introduced by newcomers to
better target alerts , understand trader behavior , surface
bus iness ins ights, meet broader regulatory obl igat ions,
and automate invest igat ions .
Looking at the f ie ld of solut ions addressing t rade and
order survei l lance requirements , there are only a few
that produce alerts across both t rade and
communications data , including NICE Actimize ,
Bloomberg, and Behavox, and to a more l imited extent
Software AG, Sci la, b-next , Trapets, and I r is ium. At this
stage only NICE Actimize and Behavox produce alerts for
voice communications alongside t rade and e -
communications survei l lance .
Because the expansion of recent regulat ions , including
the Market Abuse Direct ive (MAD) and the Markets in
Financ ial Instruments Direct ive (MiFID II ) , has increased
the buy side’s t rade survei l lance and report ing
obl igat ions , several vendors have specif ical ly marketed
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 3
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
themselves to asset managers and hedge fun ds. ACA
Technology, RIMES Technologies , Behavox, NICE
Act imize, TradingHub, and Sybenetix (purchased by
Nasdaq SMARTS in the summer of 2017) , have al l made
a concerted push to win buy side cl ients t ransit ioning
away from rel iance on their brokers and manual
processes for market abuse and insider trading
survei l lance .
A few young f i rms l ike Aquis Survei l lance and Bay Street
Tech have posi t ioned themselves to support the
survei l lance needs of exchanges , a group currently
served predominantly by Nasdaq S MARTS and Sc i la.
Other solut ions have made inroads in specif ic
geographies. b-next has been a leader in Germany for
wel l over two decades. Neurens ic ( recently purchased by
Trading Technologies ) , Tr i l l ium, and ACA Technology
have thus far focused their att ention primari ly on the
United States. In Asia, the Technancial Company
provides competi t ion to market leader Nasdaq SMARTS .
Scandinavia is served by a host of local p layers,
including Sc i la, Trapets, and I t iv it i .
In addit ion to on-premise and hosted deployment
options, a few vendors also offer survei l lance BPO.
Trapets , Aquis , and ACA Technology both offer to stand
as the f irst l ine of defense invest igat ing alerts for
market part ic ipants who are too smal l to hi re a ful l -t ime
compl iance off icer, or who need to augment their
exist ing team.
Across the enti re t rade and order survei l lance solut ion
landscape, variety rules. When select ing a solut ion to
instal l , augment, or replace current survei l lance
approaches, f i rms wi l l need to be sure that they
appropriately short l i st the vendors best posit ioned to
meet the ir needs. In this report , Opimas provides
mapping tools and vendor profi les to help the reader
quickly ident ify the solut ions that most warrant further
invest igat ion.
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 4
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
I N T R O D U C T I O N
Regulat ions des igne d to prevent market abuse have
become more str ingent around the world , demanding
that cap ital markets part ic ipants proactively
demonstrate efforts to monitor and prevent behavior
putt ing the stabi l i ty of the markets and investors at r isk.
The Market Abuse Direct ive (MAD), the Markets in
Financ ial Instruments Direct ive (MiFID II ) , ESMA
Guidel ines, the Dodd Frank Act, the Hong Kong
Securit ies and Futures Ordinance, and the Singapore
Market Misconduct Regime , cumulat ively a lso require
more market part ic ipants than ever before to survei l for
market abuse and insider t rading, and appropriately
report and handle an incident when it occurs. Of course,
market part ic ipants themselves have a number of
incentives to stamp out threatening t rading conduct:
steep regulatory f ines, reputat ional damage, and
avoiding losses , to name a few.
The abi l i ty to ant ic ipate and respond to regulatory
inquir ies centered on market abuse is of paramount
importance. While 2015 represented the high point in
recent years – with f ines reaching almost US$9 bi l l ion -
market abuse f ines have become more frequent and are
hit t ing a broader swath of market part ic ipants. Many
players have gotten away, for some t ime, with
approaches to handl ing these requirements that rely on
manual , s i l oed processes. This has quickly become
insuffic ient.
Market abuse fines have become more frequent and are
hitting a much broader group of market participants.
While visual izat ion and a user -fr iendly case management
system were sel l ing points of survei l lance solut ions in
the recent past , the focus for market part ic ipants is now
fi rmly centered on reducing costs by better target ing
alerts , broadening survei l lance across s i loed channels ,
and automat ing invest igat ions . Opimas expects overal l
IT spending on survei l lance to r ise – reaching US$1.4
bi l l ion by 2021. For an in-depth analysis of th is
increased spending, expected impact on headcount, and
chal lenges associated with each stream of survei l lance,
please refer to Opimas’ Fighting Market Abuse: AI,
Behavioural , and Hol ist ic Survei l lance Approaches
report .
This report examines vendors in the t rade survei l lance
space. While most of the prof i led vendors only provide
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 5
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
trade and order monitoring, a handful also offer
communications survei l lance. In trade survei l lance , the
market share leaders, far and away, are Nasdaq SMARTS
and NICE Actimize. However, solut ions focused on very
targeted alert creation , l ike TradingHub, are quickly
winning cl ients.
F I G U R E 1 . I T S P E N D I N G O N T R A D E A N D C O M M U N I C A T I O N S S U R V E I L L A N C E I T A N D H E A D C O U N T 2 0 1 7 - 2 0 2 1
Source: Opimas Analysis
Market abuse survei l lance requirements vary
s ignif icantly by type of market part ic ipant, appl icable
regulat ions, and the t rading strategies employed. This
report detai ls the leading market survei l lance providers
– as wel l as other obl igat ions they are capa ble of
complying with, including: e -communications
monitor ing, voice survei l lance, MiFID I I trade
reconstruct ion requirements, and RTS 27 and 28 best
execution report ing. This report also highl ights
innovative ways in which solut ions are di rect ing their
alert ing methodology , as wel l as addit ional business
insights they are able to provide for the ir c l ients. For
market part ic ipants searching for pointed assistance
survei l l ing voice and/or e -communications , look for
upcoming Opimas reports on voice and e-
communications survei l lance in capital markets .
Only a handful of the profi led solut ions provide t rue e -
communications and voice survei l lance alongside market
survei l lance capabi l i t ies. NICE Act imize has led the
charge as a provider for hol ist ic survei l lance, proving
itsel f t ime and t ime again with i ts global c l ient base.
Some newcomers , l ike Behavox, are t rying to take
market share on this front – but it is early days yet.
Other players who have been on the market for some
t ime are also offer ing communications aggregation and
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
1.4
1.6
16,500
17,000
17,500
18,000
18,500
19,000
19,500
20,000
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
IT S
pen
d (
US$ B
)
Head
cou
nt
in S
urv
eilla
nce
Total Headcount:
Sell Side, Buy Side,
Exchanges,
Regulators
IT Spend (US$ B)
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 6
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
more l imited monitor ing in conjunct ion with their market
survei l lance capabi l i t ies , including Software AG,
Bloomberg, Sci la, b-next , Trapets , and I r is ium. These
offerings are not yet comprehensively survei l l ing voice
alongs ide e-communicat ions, but are moving in that
di rect ion.
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 7
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
C O N S I D E R A T I O N S F O R S U C C E S S F U L S E L E C T I O N S
To help market part ic ipants sort through the jumble of
players act ive in cap ital markets trade survei l lance , this
report prof i les the leading and emerging solut ions designed
to detect and prevent market abuse. Product demos and
interviews with end-users have helped to val idate
functional it ies and assessments of the vendors profi led.
Before jumping to the vendor mapping and prof i les , Opimas
recommends market part ic ipants careful ly cons ider the
fol lowing:
• Does the solut ion serve my needs as a market
maker , sel l -s ide , or buy-side player?
• Which asset c lasses are covered? How are alerts
constructed?
• What other needs do I have, that a solut ion may be
able to meet? (e.g. trade reconstruct ion, e -
communications survei l lance , voice survei l lance,
best execut ion)
• How flexible is the architecture in case future
integrat ions are desi red?
In the fol lowing pages , Opimas wil l brief ly discuss some key
considerat ions to bear in mind while embarking on a
select ion, including: varied survei l lance approaches per
type of market part ic ipant , the move towards hol ist ic
survei l lance, the promise of art if ic ial intel l igence , and
addit ional business ins ights survei l lance might surface. The
f ie ld of solut ions is vast , but careful ly recogniz ing
requirements should help the reader to short l ist the vendors
most sui ted for further attention.
B U Y S I D E / S E L L S I D E / M A R K E T O P E R A T O R S U R V E I L L A N C E N E E D S
It must be underscored that it would be a mistake for a
market operator, buy-side, or sel l -s ide inst itut ion to use a
solut ion designed for another type of market part ic ipant .
Just as judging misconduct across asset c lasses with the
same algorithm is ineffect ive, so is using the same approach
for these dist inct players .
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 8
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
Traders are assessed dai ly , whereas asset managers are
rev iewed quarterly/monthly. The sel l s ide general ly t rades
most broadly and deeply. The buy s ide often trades broadly,
but not deeply ( long-term hold, etc ) . The sel l s ide is
regularly seen as the most compl icated , with high volumes
and varying asset c lasses and instruments. The buy s ide has
its own chal lenges due to a lack of experience taking
responsibi l i ty for survei l lance – a lso reflected in its
unwil l ingness to spend as much as the sel l s ide on
survei l lance . Insider t rading detect ion is often considered
to be the biggest survei l lance pr iori ty by the buy side, rather
than other market abuse scenarios.
Market operators ’ approaches to survei l lance also need to
be quite dist inct . They should priori t ize famil iar iz ing
themselves with survei l lance solut ions focused on equit ies
and exchange-l isted derivat ives, as this is what they wil l
need to monitor. Scalabi l i ty to handle large data volumes
and abi l i ty to conduct real-t ime monitor ing would both be
key considerat ions for exchanges or an HFT.
H O L I S T I C S U R V E I L L A N C E
Much of the market st i l l approaches survei l lance in a s i loed
manner , with separate systems creating alerts of suspicious
behaviors for each asset c lass and communication channel .
This evolution has been inevitable, given the piecemeal
expansion of regulatory requirements and the chal lenges
unique to each data set . The resul t is that compl iance teams
have often tacked together i l l - f itt ing solut ions for speedy
regulatory compl iance, or expanded legacy systems to
haphazardly analyze addit ional data sets.
Dist inct data channels require targeted approaches to
handle the unique chal lenges they present. Apply ing the
same algori thm to f ixed income as one would to equit ies, for
example , is useless. Communication channels present the ir
own di ff icult ies. The resul t i s that compl iance teams are
often overwhelmed with a f lood of alerts , nearly negat ing
the possibi l i ty for thoughtful invest ig at ion and
identi f icat ion of true posi t ives.
Select vendors l ike NICE Act imize , Bloomberg, Behavox ,
Sci la, b-next, Trapets , Software AG, Panalyt ics, and I r is ium
are posit ioning themselves to begin handl ing trade and
communication monitor ing in a hol ist ic manner , though a
system that t ruly creates alerts by combining these
disparate sources is not yet avai lable. Panalyt ics was not
profi led in this report because it does not yet offer
standalone trade survei l lance – though this is on its short-
term roadmap.
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 9
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
F I G U R E 2 . S U R V E I L L A N C E S Y S T E M S A R C H I T E C T U R E O V E R V I E W
Communications Archive
Trade and Order Repository
Trade and Order SurveillanceCommunications Surveillance
Documents
MetadataAnalysis
ReplayFiltering
Alert Generation
Mobile
Fixed Line
Voice Voicemail
Messenging
Electronic Communications
Email Chat apps
Social MediaVoIP Apps VoIP Apps
Meeting Minutes
Voice Voicemail
TurretsContracts Research
ComputerFiles
Internal Systems
Execution Management
AlgoTrading
Pricing/ Quotes
Order Management
External Systems
Exchange Order Books
Alternative Trading
Systems
Market Data Providers
NewsFeeds
Equit
ies
Exc
han
ge-t
raded
Deri
vat
ives
Fix
ed In
com
e
FX
OT
C D
eri
vat
ives
Trade Reconstruction
VisualizationAlert
Generation
Order Book Replay
Hollistic trade and communications surveillance
Case Management
Source: Opimas
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 10
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
Holist ic survei l lance can also aid in meeting MiFID I I
demands that al l pre- , at , and post-trade data, including
related text and voice communicat ions , be pul led together
for trade reconstruct ion within 72 hours of a request .
Retrievabi l i ty is key to meet ing the se new requirements ,
and this i s not a tr ivial exercise, requir ing cons istent
indexing of recorded data to transact ions, l inking together
voice, SMS, IM, Skype , and al l other required channels. This
is too often a manual , t ime- intens ive process . If offered as
a service, t rade reconstruct ion can function as more than a
sporadic task for regulatory com pl iance. Instead,
compl iance teams can also use t rade reconstruction dur ing
alert invest igat ions. Bloomberg and NICE Actimize are
highly regarded for their t rade reconstruction capabi l i t ies .
A R T I F I C I A L I N T E L L I G E N C E
The use of AI in survei l lance has the potent ial to produce
smarter alerts , improve automat ion, and reduce the
manpower needed to manage invest igat ions. If appl ied
judiciously, i t has the abi l i ty to pre-emptively identi fy
behavior indicat ive of future misconduct, before any grave
damage is incurred. We are not yet at the stage, however,
where a black-box AI solut ion gives market part ic ipants
comfort expla ining to a regulator why an alert was handled
one way or another. For now, AI i s best structured as an
overlay to c lear and defendable alert ing methodologies.
Some planned survei l lance approaches rely ing on AI alone
are currently st i l l too exotic . A rules -based engine, whi le
less exc it ing, is st i l l necessary to keep regulators at bay.
Even for solut ions employing machine learning, a common
problem exists. How can one best train a machine learning
system without the cri t ical mass of hard examples of proven
cases of market abuse? The confi rmat ion sample for true
alerts across many market abuse scenarios are very l imited,
which doesn’t lead to robust machine learning. Before
rely ing on a solut ion depending heavi ly on AI and machine
learning, f i rms should invest igate the historical data used to
train the system, and be careful about solut ions who have
constructed cases art i f ic ial ly to compensate for a lack of
true posit ives.
With the range of AI capabi l i t ies expanding, however, i t may
be wise to select a survei l lance platform bui lt with speed
and f lexibi l i ty in mind to make machine learning possible in
the future. Even i f AI i sn’ t happening yet , i t l ikely wi l l in the
future. Interest ingly , regulators have been very keen on
us ing AI and machine learning to ident ify new forms of
market abuse. There seems to be a due process issue in
holding market part ic ipants accountable for violat ions that
are not yet against the law – a subject deserving attent ion
in a separate study.
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 11
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
A D D I T I O N A L B U S I N E S S I N S I G H T S
While survei l lance was previously owned sole ly by the head
of compl iance , i t i s becoming a management concern in
trading as wel l . A key reason a head of trading should be
involved in choosing a solut ion is for the addit ional ins ight
a survei l lance system might provide. Survei l lance systems ,
often equipped with behavioral analyt ics , are indeed being
used to gain unexpected bus iness benef its , including:
1. Best execution analyses
2. Trader/portfol io manager performance assessment
3. Cross-sel l ing opportunity ident if icat ion
4. Employee retent ion informat ion
5. New products/ indices creat ion based on previously
unrecognized cl ient demand
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 12
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
C O M P A R I N G S U R V E I L L A N C E V E N D O R S
C O M P E T I T I O N A M O N G S T S U R V E I L L A N C E S O L U T I O N S
Especial ly in t rade survei l lance, the competi t ion for market
share is f ierce. As Opimas’ FinTech Spending and Innovat ion
in Capital Markets report demonstrates, IT spend for 2017
was actual ly relat ively smal l across RegTech in compar ison
to other steps in the capital markets value chain at US$6.4
bi l l ion annual ly.
Market share for the trade survei l lance software s l ice –
US$284mn total – i s intensely guarded by leaders Nasdaq
SMARTS and NICE Actimize. St i l l , new solut ion providers
have f locked to this space. The reason repeatedly c ited by
newcomers is that the incumbent providers produce poor
qual ity alerts and have inflexible architecture s. Conf idence
appears high that market part ic ip ants wi l l continue to grow
weary of incumbents that produce a f i rehose of false alerts.
But wariness over potent ial exposure to f ines due to
trust ing an untested solut ion has lengthened sales cycles
and has forced many startups to provide free proofs of
concept to prospects. The high-prof i le absorptions of young
f i rms, l ike Neurens ic and Ancoa, has made market
part ic ipants even more reluctant about rely ing on start -up
solut ions .
F I G U R E 3 . T R A D E S U R V E I L L A N C E M A R K E T
S H A R E
Nasdaq
33%
NICE Actimize
25%Scila
8%
FIS
4%
Trading Hub
4%
b-next
4%
Other
22%
Nasdaq and NICE Actimize dominate the market in trade
surveillance, accounting for over half of overall revenues...
Source: Opimas Analysis
Total Market Size TTM: US$ 284mn
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 13
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
We expect the market to consol idate further in the coming
12-18 months. Some of these newer solut ions are
potent ial ly overextended on impress ive , but low-paid
projects , benefi t ing mostly Tier 1 and 2 sel l -s ide
inst itut ions. There is room for these newer so lut ions to
thrive, however , and two approaches we have the most
conf idence in are :
1. Allowing market part ic ipants to layer these start-up
survei l lance solut ions on top of their exist ing alert
providers at a lower cost than tradit ional , proven
solut ions.
2. Off ic ial ly combining or partner ing with a more
establ ished player – l ike Sybenetix with Nasdaq
SMARTS.
In the face of the previously l i sted chal lenges , we expect to
see several of these new trade survei l lance f i rms making a
concerted effort to pursue these options.
The fol lowing pages contain a basic overv iew of the
solut ions act ive in t rade and order survei l lance to enable a
quick mapping of those that sui t the reader’s needs . Refer
to (
F I G U R E 4 ) to better understand the wider landscape
where these solut ions s it . F I G U R E 5 , F I G U R E 6 , and
F I G U R E 7 provide side by s ide comparisons of each
act ive solut ions funct ional it ies. For a deeper ins ight into a
part icular vendor , p lease refer to the fol lowing profi les:
• ACA - Decryptex
• Aquis Technologies – Aquis Market Survei l lance (AMS)
• b-next – CMC:eSuite
• Bay St reet Tech
• Behavox
• Bloomberg – BTCA AND BVAULT
• eflow
• FIS Global – Protegent Market Abuse
• GMEX Techno logies – ForumDetect
• I r i s ium
• ITIV ITI - Analyst
• KX Systems – Kx fo r Survei l lance
• Liquidmetr ix
• LSEG Technology – Mi l lennium Surve i l lance
• Nasdaq SMARTS
• NICE Act imize – Hol i st ic Surve i l lance
• OneMarketData – OneTick
• RIMES Technolog ies – RegFocus Market Survei l l ance
• Sci la – Sc i la Survei l l ance
• SIA - S IA EAGLE Survei l l ance
• Software AG – EagleEye
• The Technanc ia l Company - Janus Sui te
• Trad ingHub - Market Abuse Surve i l lance Tool (MAST)
• Trapets – InstantWatch Market & Outsourced Trading
Survei l l ance
• Tr i l l ium Surveyor
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 14
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
F I G U R E 4 . L A N D S C A P E O F S U R V E I L L A N C E S O L U T I O N P R O V I D E R S
Source : Opimas An aly s i s
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 15
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
F I G U R E 5 . S U R V E I L L A N C E V E N D O R S B A S I C I N F O
Source: Firms, Opimas Analysis and Estimates
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De
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AM
S
Co
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Bva
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BT
CA
CM
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TZ
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t A
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Pro
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An
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Liq
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Su
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illa
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SM
AR
TS
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C
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ick T
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illa
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Re
gF
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Su
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EA
GL
E
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Ap
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gle
Eye
JA
NU
S T
rad
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Su
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illa
nce
MA
ST
Insta
ntW
atc
h
Ma
rke
t
Su
rve
yo
r
2014 2018 2017 2014 2010 1989 2007 2013 2012 2010 2016 1993 2013 1996 1998 1999 2015 2016 2008 2002 2012 2013 2010 2005 2014N
ew
Yo
rk
Lo
nd
on
Mo
ntr
éa
l
Lo
nd
on
Ne
w Y
ork
He
rfo
rd, G
erm
an
y
Lo
nd
on
Ja
ckso
nville
, F
L
Lo
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on
Lo
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on
Sto
ckh
olm
Ne
wry
, N
. Ir
ela
nd
Lo
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on
Ma
lab
e, S
ri L
an
ka
Ne
w Y
ork
Ho
bo
ke
n, N
J
Ho
bo
ke
n, N
J
Ne
w Y
ork
Sto
ckh
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Mila
n
Da
rmsta
dt, G
erm
an
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Lo
nd
on
Lo
nd
on
Sto
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Ne
w Y
ork
50 20 4 120 120 55 15 50 10 22 15 25 10 18 200 307 20 35 50 40 20 15 45 30 20
Europe ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ◐
North America ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
APAC ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Rest of World ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Equities ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Fixed Income ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
FX ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
ETDs ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
OTC Derivatives ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
E-comms Surveillance ◐ ● ● ◐ ◐ ◐ ● ◐ ◐ ◐
Voice Surveillance ● ◐ ◐ ◐ ● ◐ ◐
Mobile Surveillance ● ◐ ◐ ◐ ● ◐
E-Comms Archiving ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Case Mgt ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Trade Reconstruction ◐ ◐ ● ● ◐ ● ◐ ● ◐ ● ◐ ◐ ◐ ● ◐
Comms
Surveillance
Trade
Surveillance
Asset Classes
Other Functions
Regions
Company Name
Solution Names
Solution Founding Year
Headquarters
Employees for these solutions
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 16
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
F I G U R E 6 . S U R V E I L L A N C E V E N D O R S D E P L O Y M E N T O P T I O N S A N D C U S T O M E R B A S E
Source: Firms, Opimas Analysis and Estimates
AC
A C
om
plia
nc
e
Aq
uis
Te
ch
no
log
y
Ba
y S
tre
et
Te
ch
Be
ha
vo
x
Blo
om
be
rg
b-n
ex
t
efl
ow
FIS
GM
EX
Te
ch
no
log
ies
Iris
ium
Itiv
iti
Kx
Sy
ste
ms
Liq
uid
Me
trix
LS
EG
Te
ch
no
log
y
Na
sd
aq
NIC
E A
cti
miz
e
On
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ark
etD
ata
RIM
ES
Te
ch
no
log
ies
Sc
ila
SIA
So
ftw
are
AG
Te
ch
na
nc
ial
Tra
din
gH
ub
Tra
pe
ts
Tri
lliu
m
On Premise ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Cloud/hosted ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Surveillance BPO ● ● ●
60 4 1000+ 80+ 50 13 3 14 216 110 10+ 9 35 30 30 50 30 14
Sell-side - Tier I ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Sell-Side - Tier II & III ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Buy-side - Tier I ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Buy-side - Tier II ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Exchanges ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Regulators ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
A2
X, U
BS
UK
OT
F, U
S A
TS
, C
an
ad
a IB
& e
xch
an
ge
Ma
rsh
all W
ace
, T
P IC
AP
, A
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rass
Bö
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Stu
ttg
art
, C
om
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an
k, IT
G,
Sa
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So
cG
en
, U
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Ka
me
s C
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ita
l, U
niC
red
it, S
ing
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ore
Mo
ne
tary
Au
tho
rity
AL
TX
Ug
an
da
, IC
DX
, H
an
oi S
tock E
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an
ge
,
CA
SE
, S
EE
D C
om
mo
ditie
s E
xch
an
ge
Asia
Pa
cific
Ex, C
ow
en
, E
ne
rgie
Ste
ierm
ark
,
Ce
nko
s, B
itfin
ex
Ba
nk o
f A
me
rica
Me
rrill L
yn
ch
, A
SIC
,
Sta
nd
ard
Ch
art
ere
d B
an
k, C
SA
, IE
X
Ma
cq
ua
rie
LS
EG
BIV
A, G
em
ini, H
KE
X, S
IX S
wis
s, S
tatk
raft,
AC
ER
, IIR
OC
BN
P P
ari
ba
s, H
SB
C, JP
MC
, M
izu
ho
Se
cu
ritie
s
Cre
dit S
uis
se
La
rge
pe
nsio
n fu
nd
LS
E, N
YS
E, D
eu
tsch
e B
örs
e, A
the
ns S
E,
Iris
h S
E
LS
EG
KG
I O
ng
Ca
pita
l, C
iti, B
AM
L, S
ocG
en
UB
S, In
ve
sco
, A
be
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en
Se
yd
ler
Ba
nk, N
GM
, N
DX
, D
ha
ka
SE
Lim
e B
roke
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e, A
pe
x C
lea
rin
g, A
dva
nta
ge
Fu
ture
s, G
elb
er
Gro
up
Representative Clients
Deployment
Options
Client Type
Nr of Installs
Company Name
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 17
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
F I G U R E 7 . S U R V E I L L A N C E V E N D O R S F U N C T I O N A L I T Y O V E R V I E W
Source: Firms, Opimas Analysis and Estimates
AC
A C
om
plia
nc
e
Aq
uis
Te
ch
no
log
y
Ba
y S
tre
et
Te
ch
Be
ha
vo
x
Blo
om
be
rg
b-n
ex
t
efl
ow
FIS
GM
EX
Te
ch
no
log
ies
Iris
ium
Itiv
iti
Kx
Sy
ste
ms
Liq
uid
Me
trix
LS
EG
Te
ch
no
log
y
Na
sd
aq
NIC
E A
cti
miz
e
On
eM
ark
etD
ata
RIM
ES
Te
ch
no
log
ies
Sc
ila
SIA
So
ftw
are
AG
Te
ch
na
nc
ial
Tra
din
gH
ub
Tra
pe
ts
Tri
lliu
m
Smart Alerts ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Behavioral Analytics ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ◐ ● ● ● ● ●
Relationship Mapping ● ● ● ◐ ● ● ● ◐
AI / ML ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ◐ ● ◐ ●
Natural Language Proc ● ● ● ◐ ◐
Sentiment Analysis ● ● ● ● ● ●
OMS/EMS ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Market Data Feeds ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Evaluated Prices ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ◐ ● ● ● ● ●
Corporate Actions ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Market News ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Alert Customization ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
APIs, ease of integration ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Ability to extract data ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Best Execution ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Regulatory Reporting ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Performance ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Employee Retention ● ●
Cross-selling ●
Advanced
Analytics
Tech Flexibility
Beyond
Surveillance
Data Sources
Ingested
Company Name
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 18
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
S O L U T I O N P R O F I L E S
A C A - D E C R Y P T E X
Decryptex market survei l lance has been part of ACA
Compliance Group’s (ACA) RegTech solut ion suite s ince
2016. With the recent acquisit ion of Cordium, ACA serv ices
over 4000 cl ients global ly . Headquartered in New York City,
the solut ion is used g lobal ly , but most c l ients currently run
their compl iance programs in the United States, and many
have non-US subsidiar ies. When purchased by ACA,
Decryptex was integrated with ACA NorthPoint ’s h istorical
infrastructure. The solut ion is complemented by othe r
compl iance consult ing and outsourc ing services run by
ACA’s global team of ex regulators, including emai l rev iew.
Decryptex automates the survei l lance of insider trading,
market manipulat ion and fai rness in deal ing. MAR scenarios
include but not l imited to: spoof ing, layering, cross ing,
momentum ignit ion and other that cross with insider deal ing
and market abuse. New algorithms cover fai rness in deal ing
which represents best execution and al location equal ity.
Decryptex has a unique approach to MNPI monit or ing and
tracks buy side f i rms meetings. The solut ion covers f i rms
trading equit ies, derivat ives , currencies, and f ixed income .
Most of Decryptex’ 60 cl ients are hedge funds or asset
managers , and 2/3 trade equit ies in some form. Decryptex
has not yet pos it ioned i tsel f to address survei l lance of
i l l iquid securit ies nor to meet the needs of HFTs. 90% of
users deploy the solut ion in the cloud and 10% run i t on
premise. 10% of c l ients also use ACA’s ful ly outsourced
trade survei l lance serv ice – a l lowing ACA to act as f i rst l ine
compl iance off icers. Decis ions and responsibi l i ty to submit
reports to regulators st i l l rest with the cl ient , not ACA.
Decryptex’s prof i l ing of c l ients ’ t rading strategies (average
holding per iod, t ransaction s ize, avera ge volat i l i ty for each
speci f ic securi ty, etc ) , is key to false posit ive reduct ion. Its
proprietary T+1 alert ing algori thms consider more than
trading and posit ion act ivity. Decryptex drop grabs the
trade data in a bulk f i le at the end of the day, from the OMS,
and then augments i t with pr ic ing feeds , market data ,
corporate act ions, and cl ient speci f ic information l ike
meeting calendars. Because the algori thm is conf igured for
each cl ient , the parameters producing alerts vary with each
instal lat ion. Deployment typical ly takes 2 months, mostly
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 19
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
spent c leaning data , and then tweaking the alert ing
speci f icat ions to sat isfy the end user.
F I G U R E 8 . A C A D E C R Y P T E X T R A D E D A S H B O A R D
Decryptex’ case management is capable of ingest ing
relevant e-comms as wel l as having attachments added to
alerts be ing invest igated. Dist inct f rom other solut ions,
Decryptex does not score the r iskiness of created alerts nor
does i t provide market replay. In the future, ACA is
consider ing expanding Decryptex to i ngest communications
and provide archiving of al l survei l led data. Decryptex is
wel l suited for buy side inst itut ions who do not require real -
t ime survei l lance and whose pr imary concern is American
regulat ions.
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 20
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
A Q U I S T E C H N O L O G I E S – A Q U I S M A R K E T S U R V E I L L A N C E ( A M S )
London headquartered Aquis Technologies , the
technologies divis ion of Aquis Exchange PLC, introduced
Aquis Market Survei l lance (AMS) to the market in 2017.
While the overarching goal of Aquis Technology is to offer
al l of the tools required to r un a market place such as an
MTF from scratch, AMS is also sold as a standalone solut ion.
Aquis Exchange also bui l t AMS for its own operation as an
MTF – suggesting an addit ional incent ive to keep the
service compl iant and running on best pract ices.
AMS’ rules-engine is preconf igured to keep i ts c l ients up -
to-date with regulat ions – both for survei l lance of longer
term manipulat ion l ike ins ider t rading and pump and dump,
and for shorter term scenar ios l ike layering. Users are
equipped with a p arser to bui ld and edit parameters with
immediate effect , and can back test alerts with historical
data. AMS generates alerts in real -t ime and T+1 where
appropriate, and the system creates t imestamps and unique
IDs for further analysis and report ing.
The technology special izes in h igh-volume and real -t ime
transactions. Scalabi l i ty is a key considerat ion in the des ign
– tested through the ful l rules l ibrary at 170 mil l ion
messages per second sustained. AMS is avai lable hosted or
on premise - accessible v ia a customizable web-based
portal . Typical deployment and alert customizat ion takes 3
calendar months. Aquis also offers various levels of
managed serv ices, providing the f irst l ine of defence for
c l ients who want to outsource init ial alert invest igat ion s in
an auditable manner. Because responsibi l i ty cannot be
outsourced, the decis ion to submit a report to regulators is
always made by the cl ient , not Aquis.
F I G U R E 9 . A Q U I S T E C H N O L O G I E S
S U R V E I L L A N C E D A S H B O A R D
Al l act ivity withi n AMS’ case management system is
auditable and structured to reflect c l ients ’ desi red rules and
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 21
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
permiss ioning. The invest igat ion dashboards al low
compl iance off icers to zoom in down to the microsecond
level and to part icular points of interest al lowing
visual isat ion of f irm events overlaid on top of the wider
market picture. Users can also configure reports to
understand alerts over t ime. Alerts are currently explained
via pop-up, which is a bit awkward to navigate , but this
feature is currently be ing changed.
Aquis has both bite s ize and ambit ious future plans for AMS.
Minor intended improvements to user experience and
eff ic iency include: t ightening workflow to help users
understand alerts quickly, presenting T+1 and real -t ime
alerts more dist inct ly , and expanding the l ibrary of reports
that can be generated. Longer term Aquis plans to leverage
monitored data to, for example, help users better
understand their customers and support KYC efforts. Aquis
is also consider ing moving into survei l lance of unstruct ured
communications data v ia a partnership.
Aquis ’ AMS is a powerful , targeted solut ion that could
certa inly compete with the l ikes of Nasdaq SMARTS,
Mil lennium IT, and Sc i la for the business of market makers.
Although only around for 1 year now, it has s igned on a
diverse c l ient group who seem pleased by the solut ion’s
rel iabi l i ty , f lexibi l i ty , and strength.
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 22
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
B - N E X T – C M C : E S U I T E
A leader in Germany for wel l over two decades, b-next i s
headquartered in Herford, Germany. b -next ’s CMC:eSuite i s
an integrated, modular compl iance platform that offers
f inancial inst i tut ions a means of detecting potential
attempts at market manipulat ion. Over 120 scenarios are
avai lable out-of-the-box, with custom scenarios to be
determined by cl ients ’ needs. b-next modules include:
CMC:Market Abuse , CMC:Global Control Room ,
CMC:Confl icts of Interest , CMC:Insider Compl iance ,
CMC:FX Benchmarking, CMC:Energy, and CMC:Blockchain
Survei l lance.
Modules also cover best execution, price deviat ion
detect ion, benchmark monitor ing, cross -market and cross -
asset monitoring. While mostly serving the sel l -s ide and a
few regulators, b-next has also gained tract ion with the
MAR and MiFID I I affected members of the buy -side, as wel l
as energy and commodit ies trading f i rms.
b-next provides mult i -asset survei l lance, with some cl ients
contributing their own data to best analyze OTC. Cl ients are
able to further hone a lerts and thresholds to their comfort
level . While market data agnostic , b -next does have a
partnership with Thomson Reuters to s impl i fy access. b-
next is also set up to be conf igurable with any OMS .
F I G U R E 1 0 . b - n e x t C A S E M A N A G E M E N T
D A S H B O A R D
About 40% of b-next’s c l ient base deploys the survei l lance
solut ion ei ther hosted on Thomson Reuters’ Elektron or
elsewhere, with the remaining 60% of c l ient s relying on an
on-premise instal lat ion . More new sales are opting for a
hosted solut ion. The b-next case management view was
bui lt to sat isfy compl iance off icers ’ needs – with
visual izat ions and sort ing possible by alert and cl ient type.
b-next has t imestamp connect ions that t ie t rade and order
data and ingested voice recordings and transcript ions from
its partner Verint within its CMC: Dig ital Communications
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 23
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
Analyt ics module. Verint helps b -next to enable voice
survei l lance analys is with near t ime technology , including
the t ranscript ion of ca l ls in 40 languages . b-next provides
21 preconfigured scenar ios for c l ients requir ing analysis of
voice f i les.
b-next’s roadmap centers heavi ly on robust MAR and MiFID
I I best execution compl iance , as wel l as preparat ion in case
of future regulatory demands for real- t ime or near-t ime
monitor ing of market abuse . b-next has a lso agreed to
partner with Catelas to offer jo int market and e-
communications survei l lance in the future.
Copyright © 2018 Opimas LLC 24
SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
B A Y S T R E E T T E C H
Bay Street Tech is a young Canadian outf it , founded with
the goal of better serving the capital markets’ t rade
survei l lance needs. Bay Street began in 2017 by targeting
the needs of smal l market operators who were dissat isf ied
with other solut ions’ struggle to cope with high -volume,
real-t ime survei l lance. S ince thes e earl iest days, the
offering has expanded to also serve the monitor ing needs of
the buy and sel l s ide across equit ies, derivat ives, f ixed
income, FX, and energy & commodit ies , both in real t ime and
T+1.
Deployed as a web appl icat ion, c l ients can choose to run
Bay Street on the cloud, hosted or on premise. The platform
is a standout for usabi l i ty – with a whol ly integrated and
auditable case management system. The workflow is
intuit ive and thoughtful ly eff ic ient , with options to digest
alert descr ipt ions in text , graphic , or tabular v iews. The
platform also makes i t easy for a permiss ioned user to add
new “watch l i sts” , e .g. new corporate act ions feeds to be
considered.
Bay Street includes a wide range of analyt ical tools to help
users invest igate alerts as wel l as discover key market abuse
indicators on their own to feed back into their alert ing
methodology. A modular table view of al l ingested data also
al lows users to play with col lected informat ion through drag
and drop funct ional ity to create reports, an d to surface
addit ional business insights, including best execution and
operations monitor ing. Users are also able to bui ld
interact ive visual izat ions of their analyses within the
platform, which other users can dr i l l into for further
considerat ion.
F I G U R E 1 1 . B A Y S T R E E T T R A D E S U R V E I L L A N C E
D A S H B O A R D
Alerts are tai lor made per asset c lass, capable of monitoring
cross market and cross asset c lass where appropriate.
Cl ients can further hone alerts and discover alternative
outcomes by using Bay Street ’s proprietary back test ing
engine. This homegrown tool runs cons istently at
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approximately 2 mil l ion transactions per second – though it
can more than tr ip le this speed.
Bay Street is a new company with impressive data
processing power, a very careful ly cons idered workflow,
and a breadth of f lexible analyt ical tools . Of course , i t i s
st i l l early days for this solut ion, but thus far feedback from
its f irst instal lat ions has been posi t ive.
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B E H A V O X
A 2014 entrant headquartered in London, Behavox offers a
“people analyt ics” enterprise platform that integrates
transaction, communicat ion, voice, and CRM data into a
unif ied enterpr ise grade data lake deployed ons ite or v ia the
cloud (e.g. Amazon Web Serv ices, Google Cloud Platform, or
Microsoft Azure) . Proprietary Behavox machine learning ,
natural language process ing, and phonetic analysis run to
identi fy capital markets misconduct , insider threats , and to
surface other employee and customer ins ights. Beh avox has
received signi f icant attention for i ts MAR compl iance use
case, but is posi t ioning itsel f to offer a broader array of
services spanning research unbundl ing, t rade
reconstruct ion, e-discovery , and the surfacing of business
insights from CRM and com municat ions data.
While the t rade and transact ion survei l lance feature is st i l l
quite new, only added to the Behavox suite late in 2017,
Behavox has made a name for i tsel f quickly for e -comms and
voice analysis . Behavox scores communicat ions on
trust/closeness ( indicators include: laughter, emot icons,
spel l ing errors, response t ime, etc . ) and business crit ical ity
to determine the r isk iness of relat ionships . Cl ients seem
part icularly drawn to Behavox’ visual izat ion capabi l i t ies,
including relat ionship maps and word clouds, as wel l as the
abi l i ty to assist with trade reconstruction requirements.
F I G U R E 1 2 . B E H A V O X R E L A T I O N S H I P M A P
Behavox has preconfigured over 150 scenarios looking for
misconduct (many addressing MAR, some for internal
threats l ike sexual harassment) . To analyze voice
interact ions Behavox developed a phonet ic keyword search,
based on 16 years of North America and Europe
enforcement communicat ions . This range of scenarios grows
with every c l ient engagement , and i s coupled with detection
of emotions in conversations that contribute to the r isk
scoring (questions, whispering, debate, anger, interruptions,
p itch, tone, intonat ion).
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Fol lowing early attention from a few large hedge funds,
Behavox has also received heav y interest f rom the sel l -s ide ,
even secur ing a major investment from Cit igroup in 2017.
While relat ively new to the market and relat ively untested,
Behavox is posi t ioning itsel f to be a hol ist ic people analyt ics
solut ion that aggregates al l communications data into one
integrated solut ion, correlates those communicat ions to
other data types , and produces immediate act ionable
insights for the ir c l ients. This is d ist inct f rom incumbents
who provide a hol ist ic solut ion via acquisi t ions of once
dist inct solut ions or who sel l e lements of an integrated
solut ion without vert ical integrat ion.
Behavox cla ims it is bui ld ing the f i rst behavioural operat ing
system with an eventual focus extending wel l past
compl iance into areas l ike productiv ity, culture, and
revenue generat ion.
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B L O O M B E R G – B T C A A N D B V A U L T
Founded in 1981 and headquartered in New York City,
Bloomberg’s pervasive presence in capital markets
(325,000+ terminals worldwide ) also extends to market and
communication monitoring and archiving.
BLOOMBERG TRAN SACTIO N COST ANALYSI S ( BTC A)
In BTCA, c l ients receive t ransaction cost analys is (TCA),
best execution analys is ( including report ing capabi l i t ies for
MiFID I I RTS 27 & 28) , and survei l lance capabi l i t ies for the
prevention and detect ion of market misconduct. The market
survei l lance offering highl ights outl iers and helps determine
underlying causes. Designed to meet general survei l lance
and report ing requirements for the broadest community
r ight out of the gate, BTCA is a mult i -asset solut ion
addressing equit ies, f ixed income, forex, and futures. Trade
data, as wel l as Bloomberg market data and news feeds with
bas ic sent iment analys is , are included in the offering.
BTCA’s case management system faci l i tates appropriate
escalat ion procedures and assignment of exceptions -
evidenc ing efforts made to comply with regulat ions in an
auditable form. For Bloomberg users, i t takes only about 1
month to deploy market survei l lance capabi l i t ies. While
speci f ics vary by requirements, alert configurat ion typical ly
includes back test ing of about one year of the cl ient ’s
historical data. Users have access to a 24/6 Bloomberg
support l ine in case of issues.
F I G U R E 1 3 . B L O O M B E R G B T C A T R A D E
S U R V E I L L A N C E D A S H B O A R D
Bloomberg’s roadmap for BTCA direct ly responds to c l ient
requests , and is priori t iz ing development of OTC der ivat ives
survei l lance. With industry -wide demand also present for
combined analys is and v iew of unstructured
communications , as wel l as t rade and order data, Bloomberg
is exploring hol ist ic invest igat ion capabi l i t ies.
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BLOOMBERG VAU LT (BVA ULT)
Bloomberg provides communications archiv ing and
survei l lance for:
• Bloomberg data, corporate emai ls , ins tant messaging
apps , soc ial media, f i les,
• Voice t ranscripts and recordings - Red Box partner,
but compatible with others )
• Trade data - Bloomberg t rading systems and data
exports from 3 r d part ies through Bloomberg’s
Connectivity and Integrat ion Solut ion (CIS)
The BVault archive, is wel l regarded for regulatory
compl iance. Though equipped with Bayesian search
capabi l i t ies, most c l ients rely on the lexicon and keyword
search functional it ies . For communication survei l lance,
BVault suppl ies 40+ customizable pol ic ies , as wel l as real -
t ime enterpr ise rule violat ion monitoring. Its intuit ive
interface is accessible through a w eb appl icat ion for
dispersed reviewers . With an audit trai l and report ing
capabi l i t ies, users also have the abi l i ty route alerts by type
and to manage the review process hierarchy.
In BVault ’s trade reconstruction service, communication
data is immediately searched for and tagged with
transactions , and then exported in the required format .
While c l ients express sat isfact ion with the result in g report
and eff ic iencies obtained, i t i s often judged to be too
expensive for use in dai ly invest igat ions of suspicious
alerts.
F I G U R E 1 4 . B V A U L T C O M M U N I C A T I O N S
M O N I T O R I N G D A S H B O A R D
While many compet itors in the survei l lance space offer
more niche solut ions, Bloomberg begins by serving the
needs of the general populat ion, and then adds speci f ic
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requirements for subpopulat ions. This serv ice model
enables the quick and easy deployment of survei l l ance and
archiving capabi l i t ies for general needs. For f inanc ial
inst itut ions already using the Bloomberg Terminal ,
communications survei l lance is included with their Terminal
subscript ion. That, along with the quick deployment , has led
a number of f inancial inst itut ions to select BVault for MAR
and MiFID II compl iance as wel l .
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E F L O W – T Z M A R K E T A B U S E
Founded in London in 2004, ef low began by offer ing
straight-through process ing services to investment banks.
Fol lowing ini t ial success in this area, ef low introduced the
TZ regtech suite in 2007. This offer ing provides several
services in addit ion to trade survei l lance for the prevention
of market abuse, including TCA, best execut ion, and
transaction report ing capabi l i t ies completed via LSEG and
Euronext partnerships . While heavi ly focused on the buy
and sel l s ide in Europe, ef low’s 50+ TZ Market Abuse
instal lat ions include a handful of c l ients in the United States
and Asia Pacif ic .
Prior to MAD and MiFID I I , ef low’s c l ient base consisted
mostly of sel l s ide inst itut ions, roughly spl it between
hosted, on premise deployments and white label
partnerships. Since these regulat ions have come into force
new sales have been dominated by the buy s ide and HFTs,
with 95% opting for the hosted offering. Eflow’s scalabi l i ty
is underscored by the variety in its c l ients’ dai ly t rading
volumes – s tart ing from as few as 100 but robust enough to
handle mil l ions. The TZ platform is priced by volume, making
it appeal ing to smal ler buy side f irms with new survei l lance
obl igat ions .
F I G U R E 1 5 . E F L O W T R A D E S U R V E I L L A N C E
D A S H B O A R D
The solut ion is except ion dr iven with custom parameters,
monitor ing for 50+ preconf igured scenarios across al l asset
classes. Users benefit from the solut ion’s bui l t - in
integrat ion with market news and a host of market data
vendors thanks to exist ing eflow partnerships. The system’s
STP foundat ion has the abi l i ty to ingest mult ip le data
sources (currently ingest ing from 240 market data sources)
at one t ime, this also enables a reduct ion in the t ime to
deployment. General ly speaking, ef low’s c l ients move fr om
a free proof of concept to ful l deployment , back test ing the
system with 3 months of historical data, in two months.
TZ also al lows for unl imited users with defined access at no
extra cost and comes with an auditable case management
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system, with assignable workflow, and storage for up to 7
years. Users can attach f i les, URLs, and news stories to
relevant cases, and can also ingest e -comms and voice
recording f i les . TZ Market Abuse users can employ keyword
analysis on ingested email and chat. The case ma nagement
system includes interact ive, customizable, and exportable
reports, often set up for part icular regulatory requirements.
Eflow also runs t rade reconstruct ion reports upon request
from a c l ient. While most trade reconstruction reports take
only minutes to run, when accessing archived data the
process may take a few hours.
Eflow’s cost effect ive solut ion has recently seen espec ial ly
strong growth with smal ler buy side f i rms driven by MAD
and MiFID I I ’ s requirements. The new release of TZ Market
Abuse promises improvements to the user experience, data
mining capabi l i t ies, and grouping of alerts by various
categor ies. The updates should enable the user to more
readi ly surface business insights, inc luding about
counterpart ies.
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F I S G L O B A L – P R O T E G E N T M A R K E T A B U S E
The FIS Protegent sui te supports f inancial inst itut ions as
they automate compl iance processes across customer
onboarding, employee trading and code of ethics , sales
suitabi l i ty test ing, social media act iv ity review, and market
abuse detect ion. Though FIS is headquartered in
Jacksonvi l le , Flor ida, Protegent was a lready on the market
as a SunGard product in 2013. FIS Protegent Market Abuse
posi t ions itself to serve the sel l s ide and the buy side as a
cross asset c lass and cross jur isdict ional surv ei l lance
solut ion. Al though it covers al l asset c lasses , c l ient need has
driven strongest development of equit ies , futures and
options survei l lance thus far. Cl ients who use Protegent to
monitor f ixed income require extra configurat ion with the
provided market data to gain confidence in alert qual ity.
Protegent Market Abuse gives users access to view, edit and
add to the out-of-the-box rules l ibrary provided upon
deployment . By monitoring changes in market and
part ic ipant act ivity, the solut ion continuously tr ies to
improve alert algori thms and reduce fa lse pos it ives.
Protegent analyzes an array of sources when surfac ing an
alert , including: t rade and order data ( ICE, CME, LSE G,
NYSE, ASX) , c l ient data, Thomson Reuters market data, and
market news. Most c l ients run a hosted solut ion, though
some holdouts st i l l require an on-premise service.
Responding to c l ient requests, F IS has also begun aiding in
pul l ing data from Protegent for MiFID I I trade
reconstruct ion requirements.
F I G U R E 1 6 . F I S P R O T E G E N T F R O N T R U N N I N G
V I S U A L I Z A T I O N
Protegent ’s case management al lows for the establ ishment
of a user hierarchy and roles, and tracks a l l invest igat ive
act ivit ies in an auditable manner. Alert visual izat ions,
market replay , and bulk t racking and clos ing of grouped
alerts aid in speeding up compl iance off icers ’ inspections.
The platform also al lows for the attachment of related
f i les/evidence to part icular cases, me aning that al l
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documents related to a part icular case can be kept within
the same system and reports can be more easi ly created.
FIS’ broad coverage across asset c lasses t icks the box for
compl iance, but future plans for the Protegent Market
Abuse offering include improving the depth of i ts
survei l lance qual i ty for each individual asset c lass. F IS also
wants to del iver t rue cross asset and cross venue
manipulat ion detect ion, where alerts are currently produced
from more si loed sources. The roadmap include s providing
users with v iews of individual and f i rm level act ivity,
al lowing greater overv iew of susp icious relat ionships. The
push for hol ist ic t rade data and communicat ions data
survei l lance is also not lost on FIS, who is consider ing
bui ld ing out this functional ity via partnerships. Protegent
Market Abuse offers expansive asset c lass coverage for
market part ic ipants , though wil l need to deepen analysis in
order to remain competit ive.
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G M E X T E C H N O L O G I E S – F O R U M D E T E C T
London based GMEX Technologies (GMEX) del ivers a mult i -
asset ‘exchange-in-a-box’ offering, including a market
survei l lance solut ion designed for exchanges , brokers,
proprietary trading desks and other market part ic ipants to
ensure compl iance with market rules, regulat ions , and
internal market survei l lance pol ic ies. While GMEX has
notably gained tract ion with young exchanges in emerging
markets, ForumDetect has also been adopted by new
exchanges and market makers global ly , including in the
United States.
ForumDetect comes with preconfigured al erts to surface
potent ial market manipulat ion, t rading act ivi ty issues,
benchmark alerts , and volat i l i ty c ircuit breaker alerts. U sing
the ‘Esper’ OpenSource Event Programming Language to
define thresholds and alerts , ForumDetect is a real - t ime and
T+1 survei l lance system that can be deployed local ly or as
a hosted solut ion. Del ivered via a browser based
appl icat ion, the system has been constructed to monitor for
cross-market and cross-asset c lass scenar ios .
GMEX’ ForumDetect includes case management
functional it ies to handle the process of invest igat ing,
referr ing, escalat ing , and report ing of suspected market
abuse. The system includes a display of surfaced alerts
requir ing further scrutiny by a compl iance off icer, as wel l as
tools enabl ing alert inves t igat ion including market replay
capabi l i t ies and reports for post -event rev iews.
F I G U R E 1 7 . G M E X F O R U M D E T E C T V I S U A L
S U R V E I L L A N C E
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I R I S I U M
Ir is ium Ltd, a subsidiary of KRM22 PLC and Cinnober
Financ ial Technology, provides cross-asset trade
survei l lance systems to sel l -s ide, buy-side , exchanges,
regulators and crypto f irms . I r is ium's market survei l lance
solut ion helps detect the r isk of market manipulat ion and
insider trading pract ices . It has been designed to comply
with EU, US and Far Eastern market abuse regulat ions .
Ir is ium’s precursor Ancoa Software, b irthed in 2010, was
acquired by Cinnober Financ ial Technology in May 2017. In
June 2018, Cinnober sold a 60% stake in I r is ium to KRM22
plc , an investment f i rm focused on cap ita l markets r isk
management . KRM22 intends to develop a r isk management
platform, incorporating I r is ium Survei l lance. The rebranding
to I r is ium was accompanied by a strategic review of the
architecture, a restructuring of the solut ion’s technology
team by hi r ing compl iance subject matter experts, and the
implementation of a new roadmap. I r is ium today looks quite
a bit di fferent from Ancoa.
In addit ion to real -t ime analysis of transact ional data,
Ir is ium incorporates news data feeds for the detect ion of
insider t rading. The solut ion also includes b est execution
analyt ics to meet MiFID I I obl igat ions. I r i s ium can ingest and
store a c l ient ’s electronic and voice communications to
provide a more hol ist ic v iew of t rading behaviour , with
lexicon-based pol ic ies able to generate basic alerts for text
communications. The solut ion includes an intuit ive case
workflow management system, offering event replay
visual izat ions, order book replay , and the back test ing
against histor ic data . Al l act ivi ty within the pla tform creates
an untampered audit t ra i l .
F I G U R E 1 8 . I R I S I U M T R A D E V I E W
Ir is ium is launching in Q4 2018 its next generation of market
survei l lance systems , aiming to bring substantial technical
and functional improvements. Vert ical scalabi l i ty , real -t ime
processing, automation through use of AI / machine
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learning, and user experience through careful ly des igned
alert visual isat ions are top of Ir is ium’s agenda .
In the last 6 months I r is ium has won new 3 -5 year l icens ing
deals on the back of improvements already made post the
Cinnober acquisit ion. With a new brand, larger shareholder
base, addit ional subject matter experts , and a reinvigorated
platform, I r is ium is much better posit ioned than it was just
one or two years ago.
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I T I V I T I - A N A L Y S T
It iv it i Analyst i s a cross asset c lass survei l lance solut ion
offered by It iv it i , formed by the union of Orc Group and
CameronTec Group in 2016 and headquartered in Stockholm
Sweden. With I t iv it i ’ s March 2018 merger with ULLINK, the
f i rm has more soundly posi t ioned itself as a ful l service
trading technology and infrastructure provider. It iv i t i
Analyst conducts real -t ime monitoring of algorithmic
trading act iv ity , including the capabi l i ty to generate ki l l
s ignals . It iv it i Analyst also provi des market abuse detection,
MiFID I I best execut ion analys is and report ing, market
maker compl iance monitor ing, and Transact ion Cost
Analysis (TCA).
The solut ion can be run either hosted or on premise. I t iv it i
Analyst has a handful of smal ler investment b anks and
proprietary t rading f i rms as c l ients, but is hoping to win
more business on the back of extending their modular
solut ion to cover more execut ion analyt ics and business
intel l igence. The f i rst module, It iv it i Analyst MAR, was
released in 2016 due to the Market Abuse Regulat ion
coming into appl icat ion. Alerts are preconfigured, but both
detect ion and scoring can be tweaked to best f i t a c l ient.
Dur ing deployment the tool bui lds up a repository of
historical c l ient data used for tuning to reduce the n umber
of false posit ives and ensure the algorithm is a sounder f it .
It iv it i Analyst provides case management capabi l i t ies with
an audit tra i l in case of regulatory scrut iny. Visual izat ions
and market replay functional i t ies are designed to help the
user make sense of the alerts created. At this stage there is
no integrat ion with communication survei l lance solut ions.
F I G U R E 1 9 . I T I V I T I A N A L Y S T T R A D E
S U R V E I L L A N C E D A S H B O A R D
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K X S Y S T E M S – K X F O R S U R V E I L L A N C E
Kx Systems, headquartered in Northern Ireland alongside
parent company First Derivat ives, leverages its algorithmic
trading infrastructure to al low users to monitor for market
abuse scenar ios across asset c lasses and markets , both on
premise and hosted. Kx Systems’ survei l lance offering, Kx
for Survei l lance, serves mostly exchanges and large banks,
as wel l as some regulators, to provide historical , T+1, and
real-t ime trade and order survei l lance. Kx cl ients seem
part icularly sat isf ied with Kx’ coverage of f ix ed income and
fore ign exchange. While st i l l relat ively new to the market in
compar ison to market share leaders Nasdaq SMARTS and
NICE Actimize, Kx has impress ively raised its profi le and
grown its c l ient base in recent years.
Customers can cal ibrate 40+ preconfigured market abuse
parameters in real t ime , with desi red permission sett ings,
escalat ions, and back test ing possible within the ful ly
auditable case rev iew system. Typical ly , users choose to
digest alerts by f i l ter ing for the t rader involved, the
category of alert , the t imestamping, and/or the record of
raw transactions. Drag and drop columns a id in compl iance
officers ’ analys is , and users can bui ld dashboards and
visual izat ions as they see f it . The f lexibi l i ty of Kx’ historical
database and replay e ngine further help invest igat ions.
Kx for Survei l lance does not come standard with addit ional
market data, though partnerships with Thomson Reuters and
Bloomberg a id in providing what a c l ient might l ike to
include in analyses. Bespoke connectors are a lso often bui l t
to c l ients’ proprietary databases. While not currently
analyzing voice and communications, Kx has referenceable
success stories conf iguring with e -comms and voice
monitor ing providers – including mapping voice metadata to
trade data upon a c l ient’s request.
F I G U R E 2 0 . K X F R O N T R U N N I N G A L E R T
V I S U A L I Z A T I O N
Post a standard market survei l lance deployment , Kx has met
several custom requirements, including: creating c l ient -
speci f ic alerts , best execut ion report ing for RTS 27 & 28,
preparing t ransaction reports for MiFID I I ARMS, TCA, and
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SHORTLISTING SU RVEIL LANCE SO LUTIONS
alerts for benchmark manipulat ion. Kx for Survei l lance is
considered to be amongst the most f lexible solut ions – a
draw for c l ients confident enough to accept the
responsibi l i ty this accompanies – and a potential drawback
for the less technical ly sophist icated. The solut ion is not
overengineered, which is part icularly appeal ing for c l ients
who would not be sat isf ied with a plug and p lay solut ion.
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L I Q U I D M E T R I X
LiquidMetrix, based in London, del ivers a suite of
compl iance monitoring solut ions including TCA, best
execution, venue stat ist ics ( including systematic
internal izer determination) , and survei l lance for the
prevention of market abuse.
Target ing sel l - and buy-side inst itut ions, L iquidMetrix
Survei l lance automates the analysis and creation of alerts in
T+1 by ingest ing standard t rade f i les from a major ity of
OMS/EMS systems, supplemented by Dow Jones
Newswires. The solut ion covers mult ip le venues and
mult ip le asset c lasses, and is integrated with case
management functional it ies.
L iquidMetrix is appreciated for its ease of use and
straightforward implementat ions. It Is part icularly wel l
regarded for its TCA and best execut ion capabi l i t ies. The
Survei l lance solut ion is best posit ioned to serve the needs
of users with lower volumes who are sat isf ied with T+1
rev iew of trade and order data.
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L S E G T E C H N O L O G Y – M I L L E N N I U M S U R V E I L L A N C E
LSEG Technology provides capital markets technology
solut ions from pre to post t rade to more than 40
organizat ions global ly through the Mil lennium and GATElab
suite of products . The Mil lennium Survei l lance offer ing is
speci f ical ly targeted to serve the needs of exchanges and
regulators monitor ing exchange -l isted products. The
product covers real -t ime, mult i -market trade and order
survei l lance. The solut ion is currently deployed on premise
and a c loud-based service is being considered. Mil lennium
Survei l lance is deployed global ly , with 14 instal lat ions
spread across Europe, As ia Paci f ic , the Middle East , and
Africa.
Mil lennium Survei l lance identi f ies potential market abuse
through alerts and then presents them to users along with
data v isual izat ions . Within the survei l lance dashboard ,
users can look at mult ip le order books at the same t ime , as
wel l as choose the v isual izat ions best sui ted to their needs
for monitoring both market abuse and trading rules
violat ions alerts. Machine learning techniques have been
implemented to complement the t radit ional alerts and
improve survei l lance outcomes.
Within its alerts management system, Mil lennium
Survei l lance enables c l ients to manage potential cases and
alerts in a sortable , searchable, and t ime organized manner.
The workflow al lows compl iance off icers to m ake notes and
add attachments per alert and categorize sets of alerts.
Market Replay has been recreated from the ground up as a
web appl icat ion al lowing for r icher graphical featur es to a id
visual iz ing the market at a point in t ime and replaying
events.
In an effort to al low cl ients to opt imize the platform to their
own requirements, Mil lennium Survei l lance now
incorporates Scala and Python script ing languages for the
development of alerts , which opens a range of community-
bui lt l ibraries and techniques , including Machine Learning.
Integrat ion with third-party BI tools is also avai lable
through APIs which can add addit ional v isual izat ion
capabi l i t ies to the core funct ions of Mil lenn ium
Survei l lance. LSEG Technology cont inues to explore the
benefi ts of emerging technologies and databases to improve
the eff ic iency and speed of its propr ietary database . LSEG
Technology wil l continue to serve exchanges and regulators ,
with no plans to expand to other types of market
part ic ipants .
LSEG Technology has been successful among smal ler
exchanges in emerging and frontier markets. Breaking into
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larger, more establ ished markets and displacing Nasdaq
SMARTS or Sci la wi l l be dif f icul t , not because of any
shortcoming in the Mil lennium system – i t i s readi ly able to
handle the volumes of the London Stock Exchange – but
rather because of s igni f icant inert ia on the part of larger
exchanges.
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N A S D A Q S M A R T S S U R V E I L L A N C E
Prior to the acquisit ion by Nasda q in 2010, SMARTS was
founded in Austral ia in 1998. A market leader on the sel l
s ide and amongst regulators and exchanges , Nasdaq
SMARTS survei l lance monitors equit ies , futures & opt ions,
commodit ies, FX, precious metals , f ixed income, dark pools ,
energy, commodit ies, and cryptocurrencies across 165+
global markets , in 35+ countries, with 210+ preconf igured
real-t ime and T+1 alerts. This includes a bundle of alerts
dedicated to monitoring cross-asset manipulat ion.
Through direct feeds, the Nasdaq SMARTS survei l lance
infrastructure sources order and execution data direct ly
from equit ies , der ivat ives and commodit ies exchanges and
MTFs. This setup al lows for a rapid deployment cycle for the
survei l lance of exchange traded instruments as wel l as OTC.
Nasdaq SMARTS is a hosted, turnkey, market leading
solut ion for exchange traded instruments and OTC.
Nasdaq SMARTS has been instal led global ly at marketplaces,
regulators, and market part ic ipants. Via its 2017 acquisit ion
of Sybenetix, a London-based behavioral analyt ics
survei l lance provider, i t is now also making a push into the
buy side. In 2017, SMARTS released the Lens module into
production to complement t radit ional rules -based
discovery. The module provides an enti ty
(t rader/desk/account ) based view of monitoring, integrat ing
signals f rom mult iple compl iance channels and data sources.
The SMARTS platform includes auditable case management.
While Nasdaq SMARTS has an impress ive c l ient base
global ly , uniquely in Asia , this space is f looded by
compet it ion. SMARTS survei l lance has grown at 8% year
over year, but wi l l need to continue moderniz ing to ward off
threats to market share from other top competitors and
newcomers.
F I G U R E 2 1 . N A S D A Q S M A R T S M A R K E T R E P L A Y
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N I C E A C T I M I Z E – H O L I S T I C S U R V E I L L A N C E
Founded in 1999, and based in Hoboken, New Jersey, NICE
Act imize has long held a leading pos it ion in t rade and
communications survei l lance market share on the sel l s ide –
without fal l ing into the “ legacy technology” trap where
many of i ts early c lassmates now res ide. Its continued
dominance can be attr ibuted to s ignif icant and ongoing
investments in R&D, as wel l as key acquisit ions by i ts parent
company of Redkite Financial Markets , enabl ing a lower cost
hosted solut ion, and Nexidia, augmenting NICE Actimize’s
text and voice analyt ics. In recent years , NICE Actimize has
s ignif icantly expanded its buy-side cl ient base, and has led
the MiFID II driven charge to provide a hol ist ic service,
combining survei l lance and analys is of both cross -asset
c lass trade data and communication channels. Another key
differentiator of NICE Actimize’s is that its ful l suite of
offerings also addresses sales pract ice and suitabi l i ty
test ing, as wel l as ant i -money launder ing requirements.
NICE Actimize’s c l ie nts (mostly t ier 1 and 2 f inancial
inst itut ions) , are part icularly sat isf ied with the solut ion’s
context-dr iven trade reconstruction capabi l i t ies – with an
upt ick in usage of over 100% over s ince ear ly 2016 . NICE
Act imize had a bi t of a head start on its c ompetitors , as i t
began offering this serv ice for Dodd Frank’s swaps
reconstruct ion requirements. The patented correlat ion
algorithm enables analysts to pul l together al l orders,
quotes , t rades, c lear ing detai ls , t rader informat ion, and
relevant communicat ion data in less than 10 minutes –
enabl ing dai ly use for c l ients ’ internal r isk management .
NICE Act imize’s communications survei l lance capabi l i t ies
leverage natural language processing and behavioral
analyt ics to monitor text and voice communicat ions for
indicators of secrecy, col lusion, bragging, etc. It can survei l
the largest l is t of languages, including: Engl ish , Spanish,
Hindi , Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Pol ish , French, German,
Japanese, Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese) , and Korean.
NICE Act imize also aggregates and analyzes a host of
communication channels including: emai l , chat , social , over
600 di fferent types of attachments, f ixed l ine , mobi le ,
turret , and some video. While i ts parent company NICE
Systems is natural partner for voice recordings , NICE
Act imize integrates with many of the other recorders on the
market.
NICE Actimize ’s case management system is al ready widely
considered amongst the best , providing a ful ly auditable
workflow. Its roadmap is also promising, including an
ent ic ing “ent i ty rev iew” to be released in the coming
months, which al lows the compl iance off icer to shi ft f rom
event centr ic invest igat ions , to view alerts in the context of
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an indiv idual trader or portfol io manager’s enti re trade and
communications act iv i ty.
F I G U R E 2 2 . N I C E A C T I M I Z E T R A D E
S U R V E I L L A N C E D A S H B O A R D
NICE Actimize global c l ients are us ing the Markets
Survei l lance solut ion for al l asset c lasses and across
mult ip le geographies, including advanced capabi l i t ies such
as cross market/cross product manipulat ion and advanced
insider deal ing. Fixed income analy t ics can run with or
without market data. Most of the f irms NICE Actimize
serves al ready have evaluated pr ices in house . However,
there are other benchmarks that the Markets Survei l lance
analyt ics can use, including the f i rm’s own transact ions.
The Actimize Markets Survei l lance Cloud solut ion is a SaaS
solut ion with embedded market data for al l asset c lasses ,
including evaluated pr ic ing data. Monitoring thinly traded
bonds is a chal lenge for al l f i rms, and NICE Act imize is a
leading vendor for OTC survei l lance. Cl ients can augment
their NICE Actimize survei l lance with an addit ional solut ion
by ingest ing alerts to the Enterprise Risk Case Manager to
have s ingle case management and management reports for
al l the survei l lance solut ions.
NICE Act imize’s roadmap looks promising – with its
Autonomous Financial Crime Management platform,
featur ing cont inued investment in hol ist ic survei l lance ,
behavioral analyt ics and anomaly detection, machine
learning, relat ionship mapping, del ivery of f ront off ice
insights, and continued reduct ion of false posi t ives. NICE
Act imize i s wel l posi t ioned in today’s market, and putt ing
this roadmap into act ion should maintain i ts pos it ion of
dominance. Although compet itors are beginning to enter the
r ing as hol ist ic solut ions , NICE Actimize is st i l l the proven
end-to-end solut ion combining both trade and
communications survei l lance in one place.
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O N E M A R K E T D A T A – O N E T I C K T R A D E S U R V E I L L A N C E
Created in 2015 by OneMarketData to perform intraday
trade survei l lance for the buy and se l l s ide, OneTick Trade
Survei l lance serves c l ients in Europe, the United States , and
Austral ia. Running on OneMarketData ’s OneTick data
management platform, OneTick Trade Survei l lance’s n iche is
providing survei l lance capabi l i t ies to market part ic ipants
trading high volumes, with several c l ients requir ing the
processing of hundreds of mil l ions of orders per day. Most
users of OneTick Trade Survei l lance also employ th eir
survei l lance provider to meet best execution report ing
requirements.
Based in Hoboken, New Jersey, OneTick Trade Survei l lance
can be deployed both on si te and hosted, with about 70% of
c l ients choosing the latter. Cl ients log -in to the system via
a password protected URL only accessible from their off ice.
The cross asset c lass alerts are typical ly produced for
c l ients in T+1 t imeframe, after process ing t rade and order
data overnight. For c l ients unable to del iver trade and order
data in an easi ly ingested format , OneMarketData also
offers data normal izat ion.
While the system comes preconfigured with 20 di fferent
alerts types , users are able to adjust parameters in real -t ime
to ensure al l desi red scenarios are monitored. Back test ing
al lows users of the system to veri fy that alert ing is
appropriately targeted for their needs. Back test ing can also
be used to aid in trade reconstruct ion requirements.
OneTick Trade Survei l lance also includes a sanity checker
for the t rade and order data.
F I G U R E 2 3 . O N E T I C K S U R V E I L L A N C E
The solut ion comes preloaded with market news feeds
provided by OneMarketData’s exist ing partnerships,
considered alongs ide posi t ion accumulat ion over general ly
a 30 day t ime period in order to create insider trading alerts.
This approach to detecting potential ins ider t rading is
part icularly wel l rece ived by its users. While OneTick does
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not provide its c l ients with evaluated pric ing to help with
the survei l lance of f ixe d income, for example, i ts hosted
solut ion can ingest a c l ient ’s dist inct data sources to be
used for analysis .
OneTick Trade Survei l lance comes with case management
functional it ies that al low for the t racking of false posi t ives.
In a future iterat ion of the solut ion, machine learning wil l
be deployed to score a lerts based on how close the alert i s
to a typical alert of a given type. Invest igat ion workflow is
auditable , al lows for escalat ions and role assignment, and
enables the grouping of alerts for eff i c ient handl ing.
Interact ive visual izat ions can be customized based on the
users’ needs and permissions. Al l alerts are described in
written language. Order/trade l i fecycle graphics help to
present a bi rds eye view of events tr iggering the alert .
Future plans for OneTick Trade Survei l lance include
employing machine learning to help make sense of alerts
l ikely worthy or unworthy of further attention. MiFID I I has
been a big dr iver for bus iness towards OneTick Trade
Survei l lance solut ion in the last few years , and with its
current roadmap put into real ity should cont inue to make its
c l ients happy.
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R I M E S T E C H N O L O G I E S – R E G F O C U S M A R K E T S U R V E I L L A N C E A N D M A R
RIMES Technologies , the managed data service provider,
expanded into RegTech in 2016 with new solut ions
addressing market survei l lance requirements for the sel l -
s ide, the buy-side, hedge funds and algorithm traders.
RegFocus Market Survei l lance and MAR is a p latform geared
towards equipping f inancial inst itut ions with market
survei l lance capabi l i t ies, including MAR and MiFID I I
requirements, to ensure their trade and order monitoring
are up to par. Although the f i rst c l ients for RIMES’ hosted,
cross-asset , and cross-market survei l lance solut ion came
from the buy-s ide, they now also include sel l -s ide c l ients.
The platform excels at f ixed income – a stumbl ing block for
many establ ished players – as i t comes preloaded with data
( f rom RIMES’ managed data s ide o f the bus iness) . RIMES has
already won s ignif icant c l ients away from incumbents with
its f ixed income and OTC capabi l i t ies. Data coverage is
another strength of the platform, together with a unique
abi l i ty to adjust parameters and thresholds to asset c lass es
and type of transact ion (order, t raded, f i l ls , etc ) . This
represents the latest trend in monitoring, cal led “dynamic
threshold”. Flexible architecture al lows cl ients to integrate
RIMES solut ions with other instal led technologies.
F I G U R E 2 4 . R E G F O C U S M A R K E T S U R V E I L L A N C E
With RegFocus MS & MAR, c l ients also have their MiFID II
requirements addressed. The tools can be used to generate
best execution analyses and reports as wel l as run
transaction reports for T+1 submiss ion to an Approved
Report ing Mechanism (ARM).
Although RIMES’ surve i l lance solut ions are relat ively new to
the market, they are able to handle the very t r icky
survei l lance requirements of algor ithm trading f i rms
including helping with the obl igat ion of test ing an aglorithm
before going into production. The platform includ es an
extremely comprehensive coverage of asset c lasses. I t i s a
known fact that a front running market event for equity wi l l
not work for f ixed income, hence al l detect ion models have
been developed by asset c lass.
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RIMES’ solut ions are typical ly priced b y user numbers,
models and asset c lasses covered, making them part icularly
appeal ing for inst i tut ions just beginning to shoulder
responsibi l i ty for survei l lance themselves , rather than
rely ing on their brokers. In addit ion to survei l lance for the
prevention and detection of market abuse and insider
trading, RIMES also offers a separate compl iance platform
which takes care of al l EU Benchmark Regulat ion
requirements.
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S C I L A – S C I L A S U R V E I L L A N C E
Founded in Stockholm in 2008, Sc i la Survei l lance has over
35 instal lat ions global ly , winning 12 new deals in 2017. It
has the second largest market share global ly for t rading
venue survei l lance (after Nasdaq SMARTS), and serves
trading f i rms and regulators . Sci la has been notably
successful winning deals with large a nd mid-large
power/commodit ies f i rms and regulators. Interest ingly , a
few buy-side f irms use the solut ion primar i ly to monitor
the ir competitor’s behavior to better respond to other f i rms’
trading strategies. Cinnober is 27% shareholder, but Sci la
operates independently.
Sci la covers al l asset c lasses ( including cryptocurrencies) ,
e ither on premise or hosted with pos it ion t racking for t rue
performance management. Alerts are created to consider
historical data benchmarking trader behavior, market
anomal ies , pr ice alerts , and instrument volat i l i ty . Cl ients are
able to ref ine alert parameters and reports with the
assistance of back test ing capabi l i t ies. The Sci la system is
database agnostic and makes use of standards API protocols
for further integrat ions. Pri or it iz ing scalabi l i ty , Sci la
processes over 50 bi l l ion messages dai ly at i ts largest
instal lat ion at the NYSE.
Machine learning is currently deployed by Sci la at large
exchanges and other c l ients to t rain the classi f icat ion of
alerts – with the goal of minimiz ing false pos it ives . The next
step wil l be to apply machine learning on top of the
stat ist ics currently used.
Case management has been bui l t out. Users seem
part icularly pleased with the market replay and ini t ial t rade
reconstruct ion support provided, but integrat ions with
outside case management systems are also supported at the
cl ient ’s request.
One large bank has already asked for voice t ranscript ions to
be included in Sc i la ’s case management system, correlated
to t rade data. Sc i la also has the capabi l i ty to ingest broader
e-comms, news, and events feeds and to correlate these
with t rading data , as wel l as provide MiFID I I compl iant
archiving. A few cl ients now leverage Sci la in this way.
Sci la has strategical ly p osi t ioned itsel f to win deals based
on their technical f lexibi l i ty – versus other more
standardized incumbents. Already , they del iver c l ient
requests that go beyond market abuse survei l lance
requirements by bui ld ing custom reports for c l ients ’ needs,
including best execution RTS 27 & 28. Th rough a mix of
replacing internal systems as wel l as incumbent survei l lance
solut ions , Sci la should continue to expand its footpr int .
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S I A - S I A E A G L E S U R V E I L L A N C E
Headquartered in Milan, S IA offers trade survei l lance to
exchanges, regulators, and sel l -s ide f i rms. The company is
start ing to see buy -side interest for the EAGLE Survei l lance
solut ion as wel l . Most of SIA EAGLE’s c l ients are located in
Italy , Hungary, and Germany, though it has addit ional
implementations scattered throughout Europe. Alongside
survei l lance for market abuse scenarios , the solut ion
monitors for confl ict s of interest , ins ider deal ing, and best
execution. Currently , about 20 cl ients are using the system,
either on premise (80%), or as a hosted service (20%) v ia
one of SIA’s two data centers in Italy.
SIA EAGLE offers both real - t ime and post-trade
survei l lance, depending on the market part ic ipant ’s needs ,
across al l asset c lasses and markets. Considerat ions for
threshold sett ing include: the type of f inanc ial instrument
analysed, l iquidity, algori thms used, volumes, and even
source IP address. The solut ion integrates market news and
corporate act ions, and comes with pric ing feeds del ivered
through SIA’s partnership with SIX Financial Informat ion.
In a standard deployment , S IA EAGLE loads a c l ient ’s
historical data to train the alert ing algor ithms, and engages
the annual ly rev iewed thresholds. Cl ients are a lso set up
with a case management system that al lows alerts to be
f i l tered by date , algor ithm, involved trader, etc. The
recently renovated dashboards provide t rading act ivi ty
visual izat ions for the cl ient ’s ful l book of instruments,
including t ime per iod, pr ic ing, and volume information.
Users can then dri l l down into the data to better understand
usual and unusual behaviour and the networks of traders
be ing monitored.
While the company is considering integrat ing
communications data into the survei l lance platform, there is
not currently a plan in motion. SIA EAGLE Survei l lance has
a long track record of serv ing a variety of c l ient types across
Europe. With broad asset c lass coverage, the stat ic rules -
based system provides bas ic alert ing required for regula tory
compl iance.
F I G U R E 2 5 . S I A E A G L E T R A D E S U R V E I L L A N C E
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S O F T W A R E A G – A P A M A E A G L E E Y E
Germany based Software AG brought i ts Apama EagleEye
survei l lance offering to market early in 2018, though i t has
offered trade survei l lance to c l ients via Market Survei l lance
and Monitoring for several years. With Apama EagleEye,
Software AG offers i ts c l ients a s ingle pane of glass view of
alerts created for t rade, order, and behavioural data,
alongs ide communications information ingested from third
party channels.
The solut ion del ivers a customizable catalogue of alerts to
its c l ients, and Software AG works with c l ients to create
addit ional scenarios where the need arises. The solut ion has
prior it ized conf igurabi l i ty – ta i lorable by asset c lass ,
geography, or organizat ional unit . Alerts can be run on real -
t ime or historic data depending on the users’ needs,
consider ing t rade, order, news, and market da ta.
The Apama EagleEye case management is ent irely new
technology, bui l t to pr iorit ize workflow and conf igurabi l i ty.
Dur ing the course of an invest igat ion users can attach
evidence in an auditable and unchangeable manner, with
every act ion t imestamped. The system al lows the
assignment of roles and permiss ions and enables data replay
for invest igat ive purposes. Interact ive v isual izat ions help
the compl iance off icer further understand the context of an
alert . Users can group alerts to invest igate or resolve i tems
more eff ic iently.
F I G U R E 2 6 . S O F T W A R E A G A P A M A E A G L E E Y E
Apama EagleEye also is able to ingest thi rd party
communications and map this to t rade and order
survei l lance alerts surfaced. While alerts are not currently
produced from communicat ions data, the offering does
provide v isual izat ions l ike relat ionship maps. Users are ab le
to group people by their organizat ional unit in these
visual izat ions in order to get a better sense of
communication f lows.
The Apama EagleEye roadmap includes enhancing report ing
capabi l i t ies – a l lowing users to conducts further analyses of
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invest igat ive efforts , including s l ic ing monitored data by
geography or type of alert . Planning is also underway to
produce more di rect communications analyses to better
identi fy outl ier act iv i ty. In future i terat ions the solut ion
aims to also improve the detection of rogue trading by
including detai ls about expense reports and the t ime of day
at which a t rader or portfol io manager is act ive.
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T H E T E C H N A N C I A L C O M P A N Y - J A N U S S U I T E
The Technancial Company, a subsidiary of IT SOFTWARE,
offers the JANUS Suite which i ncludes JANUS Risk Manager
for real -t ime transact ion monitor ing, JANUS Trade
Survei l lance for market abuse monitoring. The solut ions
or ig inated after the market chaos of 9/11 in 2001, in it ial ly
to monitor equit ies, then f ixed income ( responding to
demand in Italy ) , and then futures & options. Headquartered
in London, Technancial has continued to update i ts solut ions
to address the European Market Abuse Regulat ion and then
extended to other geographies and regulat ions , including
MiFID II and Dodd Frank. Whil e many of the JANUS cl ients
are in Europe , Technancial has extended sel l -s ide customer
deals in Asia Pac if ic and more recently global ly . These
cl ients include two global US, one UK and a French sel l -s ide
bank. Other c l ients are t ier 2 and 3, global ly distr ibuted –
with 30 in total in 11 countr ies. While init ial instal lat ions
were for the sel l s ide , Technancial has also started signing
on the buy side. Inst i tut ions selected JANUS for the real -
t ime as wel l as ‘ look back’ monitor ing capabi l i t ies, as up to
date alert ing has become more essential with t rading
automat ion.
The JANUS Suite of monitor ing products includes JANUS
Trade Survei l lance, a cross -market, mult i -asset market
abuse monitor ing solut ion. Users benef it f rom the f lexibi l i ty
to edit alert rules and controls for di fferent order f lows. The
80 plus rules in JANUS Risk Manager represent
comprehensive controls and immediate act ion in the event
of a cri t ical breach occurring. Technancial has pr iori t ized
developing smart alerts and reducing the t imewasting false
posi t ives. Recently adding FX, Technancial i s invest ing in
improving survei l lance qual ity for th is asset c lass.
F I G U R E 2 7 . T H E T E C H N A N C I A L C O M P A N Y -
J A N U S S U I T E
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The solut ion now includes JANUS Behavioral Analyt ics , with
capabi l i t ies that retain the historical data of c l ients and
traders to identi fy bus iness insights , l ike the account
performance, portfol io r isk s ize relat ive to act ivi ty, use of
avai lable l imits , and trader performance. Technancial also
offers both T+1 and real -t ime monitor ing – including
electronic t rading for MiFID II RTS 6 compl iance. Real -t ime
is especial ly important for HFTs and propr ietary t rading
desks, where a misprogrammed algor ithm can spel l d isaster.
The case management functional ity in JANUS is intuit ive
with a c lean workflow. Ful ly auditable and customizable per
cl ient ’s des ired role assignments, the system al lows
database searches, compl iant storage, and the inclusion of
attachments in alert invest igat ions. The Technancial
Company does not yet offer MiFID I I compl iant t rade
reconstruct ion report ing as a service and does not have
plans to get itself into the communicat ions monitoring
space. With the plan in motion to deepen alert qual ity per
asset c lass, Technancial i s wel l posi t ioned to continu e
winning deals in its sweet spot : Medium -sized banks and
global brokers.
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T R A D I N G H U B - M A R K E T A B U S E S U R V E I L L A N C E T O O L ( M A S T )
TradingHub successful ly pos it ioned its Market Abuse
Survei l lance Tool (MAST) to large European buy -side f i rms
($2B and over) when i t hit the market a few years ago. Its
momentum has not subs ided and TradingHub continues to
grow, expanding both geographical ly to North America, and
by serving new types of c l ients including the sel l s ide and
regulators l ike FINRA. Greenhoused by 20% shareholder IHS
Markit start ing in 2010, the independently run TradingHub
also provides rogue trader detection and trader
performance assessment services alongside MAST.
This cross-asset c lass solut ion is often referred to, eve n by
compet itors, as a promising example of advanced
approaches being used to reduce false pos it ives.
TradingHub claims to remove about 95% of the false market
abuse alerts incumbent solut ions produce during a shock to
the market – Brexit , for example. Qua ntitat ive threshold
sett ing, tracking of standard deviat ion of pr ice movement to
assess instrument volat i l i ty by type, consider ing a 12-month
rol l ing window of market data, and the appl icat ion of
techniques l ike the Monte Carlo method ( repeated random
sampl ing to obtain results ) , are al l e lements that comprise
TradingHub ’ s alert ing methodology.
MAST also identi f ies market abuse using trader metrics
which highl ight and invest igate t rader outperformance .
Where, for example a t rader demonstrates an abi l i ty to
capture mult ip le market shocks , a propensity to avoid
losses, or a tendency to gain outsized prof its whi le taking
relat ively smal l r isks. While such performance metrics,
perhaps cal led behavioral analyt ics by some, can obviously
be fed back to the Head of Trading who can try to optimize
their team – this information is also fed into the alert ing
algorithms for the detection of market abuse.
F I G U R E 2 8 . T R A D I N G H U B S U R V E I L L A N C E
D A S H B O A R D
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Some t ier 1 sel l s ide c l ients keep MAST on premise, but al l
remaining t ier 2 and buy side TradingHub users run a hosted
solut ion. Preconfigured with market news feeds, MAST is
l ive at about 30 cl ient s i tes , with several addit ional p i lot
programs al ready of f the ground. The platform is integrated
with immutable and auditable case management capabi l i t ies.
TradingHub has developed a pos it ive reputation, even
amongst i ts peers. Rumor is that it has served as inspirat ion
for even never entrants to the survei l la nce space focusing
on serving f inancial inst itut ions. Some prospects may be put
off by the fear of alert ing methodology not yet being tested
by regulators threatening f ines, but TradingHub is a solut ion
incumbents should keep on their radar. While not the most
inexpensive tool , i ts future looks bright i f i t is able to
continue pleasing its customers and bui ld a tested resume
of keeping regulatory f ines at bay.
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T R A P E T S – I N S T A N T W A T C H M A R K E T & O U T S O U R C E D T R A D I N G S U R V E I L L A N C E
Stockholm-based Trapets began offer ing the InstantWatch
Market survei l lance solut ion in 2005, and has become a
dominant player in northern Europe serving regulators ,
exchanges, MTFs, the sel l s ide, and the buy side. Trapets’
platform for automatic survei l lance analyses trade, order,
and news f lows from exchanges and MTFs in real t ime or in
batch. Either on si te or hosted, InstantWatch Market
posi t ions i tsel f to help c l ients comply with MiFID II , MAR
and ESMA guidel ines on market abuse and insider t rading
survei l lance .
The InstantWatch Market platform produce s cross-market
and cross-asset c lass alerts according to a rule-based
system, preloaded with 50-60 configurable alerts. The
alert ing thresholds , based on volat i l i ty and standard
deviat ion calculat ions , d if fer per asset c lass and are
reworked each night . The system is bui l t to provide more
than 2 mil l ion alert tr igger checks per second – making i t
scalable enough to support the needs of an HFT. Trapets ’
conf igurable c l ient dashboard includes auditable case
management capabi l i t ies , data visual izat ion options ,
orderbook replay, and best execut ion analysis .
F I G U R E 2 9 . T R A P E T S I N S T A N T W A T C H M A R K E T
D A S H B O A R D
A unique dif ferent iator of Trapets, i s i ts Outsourced Trading
Survei l lance (OTS) offer ing. ESMA technical standards
al lows for outsourcing in survei l lance , so Trapets offers to
perform the day-to-day survei l lance work on behal f of c l ient
us ing InstantWatch Market. This outsourced real-t ime or
batch (for buy s ide) alert management service especial ly
appeals to market part ic ipants w ho are too smal l to hi re a
ful l -t ime compl iance off icer, need to augment their exist ing
team, or would l ike back-up avai lable for their compl iance
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teams. Al l communication between Trapets and cl ient s i s
documented within the platform, including dec is ions on
whether or not to submit a STOR report fol lowing an alert .
With the broad range of instruments covered , famil iar ity
serving many types of c l ients , several options for
deployment, and compl imentary KYC and AML offer ings,
Trapets should wel l be able to further expand outside of
northern Europe. Lately , Trapets has expanded their
offering with MiFID I I services, including a id ing in trade
reconstruct ion. With i ts f i rst InstantWatch Market c l ients
already on board in Bangladesh and Argentina, we expect to
hear more from Trapets outs ide of Europe.
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T R I L L I U M S U R V E Y O R
The 2014 technological offspring of proprietary t rading f i rm
Tr i l l ium, Tri l l ium Surveyor is focused speci f ical ly on North
American cl ients trading equit ies, options, and futures. This
solut ion was created to address an internal need fol lowing
a FINRA investigat ion at Tri l l ium for layer ing and spoofing.
Surveyor is des igned to preempt such a regulatory inquiry,
avoid f ines, and mit igate potential reputational damage.
This trade and order survei l lance offer ing is targeted at sel l
s ide f irms, prop shops, and quant funds who do signif icant
volume.
Within equit ies , futures, and opt ions , Surveyor offers T+1
cross product survei l lance as wel l as monitor ing for cross
market and cross product v iolat ions. The depth of order
book analysis i s part icularly wel l suited for the reduction of
false pos it ives for spoofing and layering. The so lut ion
al lows users to automate the classif icat ion of alerts before
they are escalated, and the windows based front end is
intuit ive to navigate and populated with visual izat ions that
aid in alert invest igat ions, including orderbook replay. The
solut ion is currently hosted in Tri l l ium ’ s private c loud, but
a migrat ion to Amazon Web Services is underway, expected
to be completed by year end 2018. Tri l l ium provides the
market data used for alert creat ion . The platform is
conf igurable by Tri l l ium’s engineering staff only , but
parameter changes can be made overnight and new features
are added monthly.
F I G U R E 3 0 . T R I L L I U M M A R K E T V I E W E R
S H O W I N G C R O S S - P R O D U C T A L E R T
Special attention has been paid to develop v isual izat ion
within the platform, and Surveyor also includes natural
language storyboards that produce alert explanations in
plain Engl ish. Most Tri l l ium cl ients use the case management
functional it ies within Surveyor , though some use their own
separate systems. In these situat ions , case management
workflow notes , together with relevant support ing
posi t ions, news, and market data needed for analysis , are
sent via pdf with charts di rect ly to the reviewers.
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Tri l l ium has thus far focused on the United States and
Canada, with l imited coverage of European futures markets
only. Future plans inc lude expanding asset c lass coverage
and making alerts avai lable in near real t ime (currently alerts
are generated T+1 only) .
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L O O K I N G F O R W A R D
Even with Nasdaq SMARTS and NICE Act imize owning over
half of the US$284mn spend on trade survei l lance software,
new entrants are aggress ively entering the r ing . Recently
there has been a t rend for regulatory report ing hubs to get
in on the game. UnaVista plans to rol l out market abuse
alert ing and report ing this year v ia its UnaVista Transact ion
Intel l igence offering. Sapient is cons idering creating a
formal offer ing off of the back of an engagement for a
part icular c l ient. Analyt ics providers are also employed from
t ime to t ime to help c l ients meet survei l lance requirements
– SAS and London-based start-up SteelEye, have both been
assigned such tasks. Euronext Technology Solut ions is al so
throwing its hat in the r ing , p lanning to offer market abuse
report ing powered by Kx leveraging kdb+ Big Data
capabi l i t ies.
Some of the newcomers wil l l ikely struggle to get a
sustainable foothold in this very competi t ive space. A
consol idated cl ient base is an essent ial advantage that more
establ ished solut ions have , al lowing them to f inance efforts
required to keep their systems up to date . Upgrades require
funding, and external investment can only carry a f i rm so
far.
We expect to see some of the leading providers acquire or
partner with complementary smal ler solut ions , and that the
f ie ld of t rade survei l lance vendors wil l shr ink over the next
12-18 months.
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About the Report 's Author
Anna Griem is a senior analyst in Opimas’ equit ies t rading pract ice and has publ ished reports on a
variety of top ics , including MiFID I I and RegTech.
About Opimas
Opimas is a management consultancy focused on capital markets, serv ing leading f inanci al
inst itut ions around the world. Our special i sat ion al lows us to bring our expert ise to bear from the
very beginning of projects, to provide insight and craft st rategies for our c l ients more quickly ,
without sacr if ic ing qual ity. Opimas continuously invest s considerable resources, representing
about one thi rd of our revenues , in market research. This investment al lows us to create a pool of
intel lectual capital on issues of strategic importance to our c l ients.
Uniquely in the consult ing industry, Opimas pur sues an ent irely open approach to knowledge
sharing, providing our c l ients direct access to our enti re pool of inte l lectual cap ital . This gives our
c l ients the lat itude either to support their st rategic decis ions independently, whi le relying on our
knowledge base , or to engage direct ly with our consultants on a project basis .