Results of ARQA Technologies in 2021

Clients

In 2021, 14 organizations including banks, exchanges, investment and asset management companies became new clients of ARQA Technologies. Ten of them implemented QUIK software, and four — solutions based on the QORT software platform.

QUIK Complex

Projects

Last year, ARQA Technologies continued bringing its software products in compliance with regulatory requirements and infrastructural innovations on financial markets.

• As part of preparations for implementation from October 2021 of a mechanism on the Russian Securities market to test unqualified investors, improvements were made in the front-office platform QUIK for marking complex financial instruments. Also, the company together with the Moscow Exchange and Interfax organized a webinar for professional market participants with a discussion of methodological and technical issues of new rules to work with clients.

  Developments were made in the following software: Moscow Exchange Securities Market (Main Market Sector) trading interface, SPB Exchange trading interface (Russian securities market), SPB Exchange trading interface (Foreign securities market), OMS Manager module, Bookbuilding module, FIX adapter and FIX drop copy program interfaces, QUIK workstation, QUIK server)
• Moving progressively towards the increase in the markets’ availability time for investors and 24/7 trading, the Moscow Exchange and Saint-Petersburg Exchange in 2021 have extended trading hours of certain market segments. Accordingly, operation time of QUIK servers and modules, data centers and technical support service of the company was also extended.

In 2021, the project on the video library about the QUIK system capabilities has been further developed. Four new videos were published on the website and YouTube channel of ARQA Technologies.

Server Modules

In 2021, the line of trading interfaces of the QUIK server was expanded.

The trading interfaces for trading access on the Moscow Exchange were supplemented with the Moscow Exchange RFS mode of the FX Market program interface to connect to the exchange server by large order execution, and the Moscow Exchange Securities Market OTC-system trading interface to work with exchange bonds and OTC (commercial) bonds.

Launch of KASE Derivatives Market and FX Market trading interfaces in addition to the existing KASE Securities Market trading interface provided access to all sectors of the exchange market.

Last year, trading participants’ possibilities to receive market data via news and market data interfaces of QUIK were expanded through support of work with two new trading venues – OPRA (The Options Price Reporting Authority) and Bolsas y Mercados Españoles. The total number of markets available through integration with market data providers (Refinitiv, FIS Global Network, QuantHouse, Bloomberg, Interactive Brokers, ICE Consolidated Feed) reached 37.

A number of significant improvements were made in the QUIK OMS functionality. They include a possibility to customize a context menu of tables and templates of OMS orders, a possibility to display aggregated parameters when selecting several OMS orders in the table. There is also a functionality to execute OMS orders in exchange negotiated deal modes.

Services Provided by Data Centers

Taking into account the clients’ demand for the QUIK software complex as a service (SaaS), ARQA Technologies continued the development of program solutions provided as a service. Last year, the following modules in great demand became available as a service: Investment recommendations module, OMS Manager module, and Broker quotation system.

User Terminals

All QUIK user applications – QUIK workstation, web terminal webQUIK, and mobile applications iQUIK X and QUIK Android X – now support the Investment recommendations module. If this module is a part of the QUIK server configuration, a broker transmits to client terminals analytical or trading tips for clients to execute trades in a semi-automatic mode.

Last year, 9 updates of the main QUIK user application – QUIK workstation – were released. Most of them related to the better terminal usability and enhanced functionality of the terminal. In particular, new options to work with charts and new order entry forms were added together with optimized authorization and work with windows and tables.

Branding of mobile terminals iQUIX X and QUIK Android X was a feature of 2021 – five projects were implemented during the year.

QORT Platform

A considerable amount of improvements were made in 2021 in the QORT platform based products.

In particular, there is an expanded functionality to work with financial instruments (evaluation and accounting of derivatives, REPO trades, cross currency interest SWAP, etc.). Integration with NSD was further developed. Now, the integration module allows not only exchange of data with NSD web services but also delivery of information from NSD Valuation Center.

Automated back-office backQORT

In backQORT, great attention was paid to accounting of operations and calculations in accordance with MiFID II requirements. For use of backQORT by brokerage companies in the European jurisdiction, the APA reporting module was developed which automates the sending of obligatory reports on OTC trades* by EU-resident companies in accordance with MiFID II requirements.

Numerous improvements made for Russian clients relate to regulatory changes: client instruction accounting, PIT calculation by progressive scale, generation of non-credit organizations’ reports to the Central Bank (XBRL taxonomy 4.2).

Middle-office of an asset management company capQORT

For capQORT, three modules were adapted:

• Web-services integration module as an alternative mechanism for integration with external systems. It allows adding, editing, deleting records in the QORT database, and also receiving data from its main tables via the HTTPS protocol.
• Module of OTC trade reporting for submitting information on off-exchange trades registered in capQORT to the Moscow Exchange as stipulated by current requirements about information disclosure.
• External reports request module for design and generation of optional reports and integrations with external systems.

Membership in Professional Associations

In 2021, ARQA Technologies became a member of RUSSOFT, the largest noncommercial association of software companies in Russia. This will allow prompt provision of information on different upcoming changes in the IT sector, exchange of experience and participation in setting a respective agenda in the industry.

Also, the company joined the National Association of Stock Market Participants (NAUFOR) as an associate member. NAUFOR is the largest union of professional participants of the securities market in Russia. Membership in this organization demonstrates the recognition of an important role of ARQA Technologies in the information technology sector on financial markets.

Events

In 2021, ARQA Technologies took part in technological forums in Russia and abroad both on-line and off-line: ACI Russia eFX Summit 2021 (Moscow), Cboe Europe Market Data Vendor Party (London), Emerging Europe and Central Asia Conference (London), Evolution of OMS/EMS for Equities (USA), IDX International Derivatives Expo (London), HighLoad++ Spring 2021 (Moscow), Refinitiv Solutions Forum 2021 (Moscow), TradeTech Europe 2021 (London), NAUFOR Conference ‘Information Security’ (Ekaterinburg), XI Exchange forum of the Moscow Exchange (Moscow), ХIII annual Ural conference of NAUFOR ‘Russian Stock Market’ (Ekaterinburg).

The annual company’s seminar was of great interest for clients and partners of ARQA Technologies. In 2021, the seminar was attended by about 300 participants from 85 Russian and foreign companies.

Also, for the seventh consecutive year, ARQA Technologies acted as a technological partner of the Invest Trial competition of the Moscow Exchange for novice exchange traders and provided the QUIK platform for the contest free of charge.

In 2021, ARQA Technologies completed the change of its corporate identity and of its products and updated its corporate website.