In contrast with current sentiment towards the NFA, the ASIC is seen as one of the more FX friendly regulators. The Australian finrancial regulator is developing a reputation of understanding the FX market which has led to an increase of foreign brokers becoming licensed in the country. To ensure that its regulation isn’t viewed as soft in the wake of the flock of brokers setting up in Australia, the ASIC has proposed a raise in capital requirements in addition to other measures. Overall, ASIC wants to create a balance between welcoming brokers to Australia but providing firm supervisory for investment customers under its jurisdiction.
On this account, financial technology and consulting firm, First Derivatives has announced that the ASIC has chosen its Delta Stream product to provide market surveillance for the regulator. Specifically, First Derivatives stated “Data Stream will be integral to ASIC's market surveillance activities enabling detection of trading anomalies and irregularities that may indicate disorderly or prohibited trading across the range of asset classes and products traded.”
13 December 2012 First Derivatives plc ("First Derivatives" or the "Company") ASIC selects Delta Stream™ to provide next generation market surveillance solution First Derivatives (AIM: FDP.L, ESM:FDP.I), a leading provider of software and consulting services to global investment banks, brokers, hedge funds and exchanges, today announces that it has signed a multi- year annual software license with the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) to implement its Delta Stream™ solution for the design, development and hosting of ASIC’s new market surveillance system. Delta Stream™ will be used by ASIC in meeting its statutory obligation to oversee Australia’s licensed financial markets. In particular, Delta Stream™ will be integral to ASIC's market surveillance activities enabling detection of trading anomalies and irregularities that may indicate disorderly or prohibited trading across the range of asset classes and products traded. This ability to monitor various instrument types in differing asset classes like equities and fixed income, highlights the strength of the Delta suite in dealing with large data volumes at high velocity within a single platform, i.e. its ability to address the “big data” challenge. First Derivatives’ Delta Stream™ was chosen by ASIC as the preferred scalable, robust and technologically advanced solution to deal with the ever complex nature of trading which is characterised by faster trade speeds, increased trade and order volumes, and dispersed Liquidity . These market features have made detecting and investigating market misconduct increasingly complex. Commenting on the contract win First Derivatives CEO, Brian Conlon said “We are delighted with the decision by ASIC to use Delta Stream™ as their chosen platform for market surveillance. Delta Stream™ will allow ASIC to quickly respond to evolving market regulations, the introduction of new products and projected increases in data volumes .The domain knowledge and technical capabilities of our professional services teams leave us ideally placed to design and manage the hosting of this solution and to partner with ASIC in developing Analytics to help maintain efficient and orderly markets.” ASIC said that the new system would enable its market surveillance team to interrogate very large data sets, and monitor market activity in a manner consistent with the increased use of technology in day-to-day trading.
