Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx) has upgraded the trading and clearing systems for its derivatives market -HKATS (Hong Kong Futures Automatic Trading System) and DCASS (Derivatives Clearing and Settlement System) - to Genium INET, a new technology platform that provides better performance and supports the further development of the market.
The upgrade multiplied the systems’ clearing and trading capacity, equipped HKATS with ultra-low-latency trade processing capability and improved DCASS’ clearing processing by shortening batch running times. In addition, there are new Central Gateways for Exchange and Clearing Participants to reduce the hardware footprint at Participants’ premises and the associated network bandwidth requirements. The new platform also offers new functionalities such as Tailor-Made Combination (TMC)* orders with auto-matching capability.
“Our new Genium INET platform delivers world-class performance with ultra-low order processing latency,” said Charles Li, HKEx’s Chief Executive. “Its rollout was another big step for us as we proceed with our HKEx Orion technology initiatives.
“The Orion programme is making good progress,” Mr Li added. “We have been pleased with the performance of the infrastructure we put in place last year – the new Data Centre, our Hosting Services and SD/Net2, the low-latency network for our trading, clearing and market data systems.
“This year, we have been focusing on platform implementation, and stability and reliability are the most important aspects of the system upgrades,” Li continued. In addition to the derivatives market’s system upgrade to Genium INET, HKEx introduced the Orion Market Data Platform (OMD) at the end of September and is working on installing a Central Gateway for the securities market.
OMD has been operating smoothly since its launch. It provides low-latency market data and allows HKEx to disseminate a range of datafeed products with different content and other features to meet the varying needs of information vendors, Exchange Participants and investors. Following the end of OMD’s two-week stabilisation period last Friday, the legacy market data source (the Market Datafeed, or MDF) will still be kept running in parallel with OMD for a short period of time to support the smooth migration of information vendors’ downstream services.
“Exchange Participants demonstrated a high degree of professionalism and commitment in the system tests and market rehearsals before the technical upgrade. HKEx thanks them for their efforts and we look forward to their continued support,” Mr Li said.
*TMC is a new trading function for investors to execute option strategies with multiple legs at one net price.
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