DMA tops the bill – Delegates at the Face2Face event in Malaysia urged greater intra-exchange and DMA trades

By Stephanie Lawton

Advances in electronic trading technologies, including DMA, and the role of FIX in streamlining global investment strategies were top of the agenda at the FIXGlobal Face2Face event, held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on the 21st of May. FIXGlobal’s Stephanie Lawton reports.
More than 150 delegates attended the FIXGlobal Face2Face event, a day-long gathering of professionals from all sides of the trading community. With Direct Market Access trading due to start later in the year, the event was held at the Bursa Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur.
Opening the event, UBS’ Owen Tomlin, Head of Direct Execution Sales for SE Asia, gave an overview of the latest developments in the FIX Protocol, its impact on the regional trading environment and the advantages it offers for both the buy and sell-side of the industry.
Tomlin was followed by an exchange between Invesco’s Regional Head of Operations, Dean Chisholm, and Rebecca Thomas, UBS Investment Bank’s Direct Execution Sales & Marketing. The topic was ‘The Importance of Electronic trading to the Buy-side.’
The speakers conceded that front-end capital expenditure was unavoidable for the adoption of electronic trading hard and software, but agreed that prices were likely to come down as the technologies became more widespread. The advantages, however, were now indisputable. The need to manage compliance and risk, coupled with an increasing focus on global investment strategies meant that electronic trading technologies were now an essential tool in navigating global markets and regulatory requirements. The role of the trader, they believed, would now be more focused on cost analysis and understanding market impact on trading strategies.
Tasked with updating delegates on the priorities of the Malaysian Securities Commission, its Head of Institution Supervision Department, Market Supervision Division, Puan Shareena Mohd Sheriff, said the Commission had looked at best practice in similar jurisdictions overseas before formulating guidelines to clarify the kind of electronic facilities that would be regulated under the Capital Market Services Act .
The next session opened with Peter Tierney, MD Asia region, NYSE Technologies, adding an international perspective on the changing trading environment for exchanges and cautioning the delegates that, with the proliferation of electronic trading, the onus was on the industry to become more efficient.
Tierney was joined by Bursa Malaysia’s CIO, Jit Jee Lim, who spoke about the challenges faced by the domestic exchange. Among the major projects close to fruition was the launch of DMA. The bourse was also looking at de-coupling the business of the exchange, looking at co-location and exploring new OMS and certification. In terms of FIX, Lim said the industry needed to embrace the Protocol and that Bursa Malaysia would support them by being FIXenabled and capable of leap-frogging to the latest versions. Lim added that the bourse worked closely with the local regulator and that the ability of trade across multiple Asian exchanges was still under discussion.