QuantHouse and Otkritie Partnership Extends Access to Russian Markets

QuantHouse is finalising access to Russia’s Micex and RTS exchanges for its high frequency trading clients in the wake of a partnership forged with Russian financial giant Otkritie. In turn, Otkritie will use a QuantHouse market data feed and the company’s QuantFactory automated trading platform to support its own clients trading on the Russian exchanges.

Tim Bevan, director of global electronic sales at Otkritie, explains: “Mutual clients brought us together and we recognised that QuantHouse was a natural partner for high frequency trading in Russia. We have developed an off the shelf solution to access opportunities in the Russian markets and the outcome is also mutually beneficial. We have better access to a fairly inaccessible market and hope to attract high frequency trading funds to use our infrastructure to trade on the Russian markets, and QuantHouse gains access to the Russian markets for the first time.”

The partnership is exclusive, requiring QuantHouse customers to trade on Micex and RTS through Otkritie, and is, according to Bevan, the primary focus for Otkritie this year. On meeting the needs of Otkritie’s customer base, the company’s managing director of global electronic trading, Nils Jahn, says: “With the development of high frequency and algorithmic trading there has been an increased demand among clients for ultra low latency infrastructure, local knowledge and expertise. Otkritie is committed to ensuring clients have access to high performance trading technologies to optimise business performance. This collaboration with QuantHouse will give Otkritie customers exclusive access to Russian markets using a world class technology platform.”

On the other side of the partnership, QuantHouse head of global sales and marketing, Stephane Leroy, says: “A growing number of clients are asking for access to emerging markets such as Russia in search of new opportunities. Our partnership with Otkritie is an efficient solution for anyone who wants to enter this market rapidly leveraging QuantHouse technology.”

Existing QuantHouse clients will be able to continue to work within the company’s market data framework to trade on the Russian markets and will be able to use not only the Russian market data feeds, but also feeds from other markets within the framework to develop and test algo trading strategies using QuantFactory.

QuantHouse is in the process of implementing the market data service, which will run from racks co-located in the Russian exchanges – Otkritie’s trading engines are also located at the exchanges – and expects it to be available within the next couple of weeks. Leroy says a couple of hedge fund clients are in line to sign up for the service as soon as it is available and he expects others to follow. “We are the first low latency market data provider to move into Russia. This partnership simplifies the process for clients wanting to step into this market and brings them a new source of revenue,” he concludes.