Cinnober Financial Technology

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Cinnober Financial Technology^[1] is an independent, global provider of advanced financial technology based in Sweden.

Cinnober develops solutions used by exchanges, banks and other financial institutions including Borsa Italiana, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, Deutsche Bank, Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange, London Metal Exchange, NYSE Liffe and Quadriserv. Cinnober also powers new initiatives and alternative trading systems in new international marketplaces, including Alpha Trading Systems, Burgundy, Markit BOAT and Turquoise.^[2]

History

The company was founded in 1998 by four former employees of OMX and SEB (a Swedish bank). They had worked together at Digital Equipment Corporation during the 1980s and had developed trading systems. Their vision was to develop a flexible and fast platform for financial transactions, using the possibilities offered by technological achievements such as the Internet and Java.

The four founders were joined by the present chairman of the board, Nils-Robert Persson. Of the original founders, Gunnar Mjöberg and Peter Lenti are still active in the company. In 2005, Cinnober sold its subsidiary CScreen Ltd. - the provider of CScreen, a price discovery platform for equity derivatives - to Euronext.liffe.^[3]

In November 2007, Cinnober announced its membership in the Open MiFID Alliance (OMA). The OMA enables financial institutions to adopt pragmatic solutions to accelerate the upgrade of their IT infrastructure, and meet the regulatory requirements of MiFID.^[4]

In the fall of 2007, Cinnober and Turquoise sealed an agreement for delivery of the Turquoise trading platform, covering both operation and hosting services.^{[5] [6]} Turquoise is the multi-lateral trading facility (MTF) being set up by leading European investment banks.

In 2007, CBOE (The Chicago Board Options Exchange) chose Cinnober to provide the first fully-automated electronic FLEX Options Trading System in the U.S.^[7] In 2007, Cinnober developed a pre-and post-trade reporting system for Project BOAT, the group of investment banks whose members overlap with Turquoise.^[8]

Cinnober has 170 employees, most of whom have a background in marketplaces and financial IT. Offices are located in Stockholm and New York. The company's Series B shares are listed on “Alternativa Aktiemarknaden”^[9] (the Alternative Stock Market) and are traded twice annually, in June and December.

In November 2011, it was announced that BM&FBOVESPA had selected Cinnober to implement a multi-asset clearing system based on TRADExpress RealTime Clearing that would be delivered for equities, derivatives, government bonds and spot FX.^[10].

• On May 18, 2011, the Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange was launched, using Cinnober's trading, post-trade and surveillance technology, or TRADExpress platform.^[11]

• On April 25, 2011, the Stock Exchange of Thailand announced that they chose Cinnober Financial Technology's trading, information disclosure and surveillance system for the equity and derivatives markets. ^[12]

• On Jan. 25, 2011, Scila Surveillance, a multi-asset solution marketed by Cinnober, was selected for Deutsche Börse Group's two largest exchanges; Eurex and Xetra. ^[13]

• In late April 2010, Cinnober announced that it would upgrade the DDM Plus market-data systems of Borsa Italiana, part of the London Stock Exchange (LSE)group and operator of the Italian Stock Exchange and Italian Derivatives Market (IDEM). The upgrade was needed after the LSE chose the SOLA electronic trading platform for IDEM. ^[14] DDM Plus is part of Cinnober's TRADExpress electronic securities-trading platform and disseminates information on share, derivatives, fixed income and certificates markets, plus their indices.

• On Oct. 29, 2010, Cinnober announced that Per-Anders Häll-Bedman as Deputy CEO, in addition to his current position as Head of Support and Operations. ^[15]

• On June 1, 2010, Cinnober launched TESS (TRADExpress Streamlined Services)—a SaaS offering for trading venues comprising a hosted and managed exchange system and market surveillance. ^[16]

• In early March 2010, Cinnober took another step in their aim to lower latency by releasing a new version of the TRADExpress Trading System. The first customer upgrade begun immediately. ^[17]

• On Feb. 22, 2010, the first order for Cinnober's multiple asset class real-time clearing and risk management solution took place. “Real-time clearing is a paradigm shift for the clearing industry,” says Nils-Robert Persson, executive chairman of Cinnober in a press release.^[18]

• On Sept. 22, 2009, Oslo Børs selected Scila Surveillance for their derivatives market. This made Oslo the fourth market to take in the recently launched all-purpose surveillance system.^[19]

• On Sept. 2, 2009, Cinnober was chosen to deliver the Scila market surveillance system to London Stock Exchange Group derivatives market EDX London.^{[20] [21]}

• On June 9 and 10 of 2009, Cinnober will be exhibiting the TRADExpress RealTime Clearing solution and the Scila Surveillance system, among other products, at IDX: FIA/FOA International Derivatives Expo 2009, in London, U.K.[1]

• In April 2009, Cinnober launched a real-time clearing solution which was developed to meet the increased demands for high performance clearing services that are expected to be one of the effects of the credit crises. The clearing solution supports bilateral clearing and can be used so see a continous up-to-the second picture of a member's position at any given moment.^[22] The Financial News called it an "all-purpose system" in May 2009.^[23]

• In February 2009, Cinnober and Scila AB announced the signing of an exclusive sales agreement involving the launch of a market surveillance system. According to the company, the system, named Scila Surveillance, can be implemented with any trading platform on the market. Scila is a Stockholm-based company, in which Cinnober has invested a strategic minority stake.^[24]

• In September 2008, Cinnober announced that it was selected as technology provider for Burgundy, a trading facility for listed Nordic securities, targeted for launch in the first half of 2009.^[25]

• In September 2008, the Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange (HKMEx) announced the appointment of Cinnober to become HKMEx's partner in the development of its trading platform technology. HKMEx aims to create an electronic trading platform that will place clients at the forefront of market activity with advanced transaction technology and access to liquidity.^[26]

Products and Services

Cinnober provides solutions and services to trading and clearing venues. All applications have a layered design with the TRADExpress Platform as the base. The platform encompasses the infrastructural components needed for mission critical transaction solutions and ensures performance in terms of low-latency and high throughput.The business logic of each specific product is added in modules on top of the platform layer. The final step is customizing the product to suit each customer’s own business model.

The customization is done in close cooperation with the customer. Scrum and other methods that enhance agility and transparency are used in the delivery process. The TRADExpress Platform is based on Java. It has a fully redundant and scalable architecture and runs cost effectively with a wide choice of hardware, operating systems and databases.

Cinnober also offers managed hosting services and system operations of delivered solutions.

Products and services include:

• TRADExpress Trading System is marketed as a low-latency, high-throughput trading engine that meets the needs of the most demanding marketplaces within the financial, commodity and energy sectors. In March 2010, version 8.0 of TRADExpress Trading System was released. In addition to efficiency improvements in the system protocol and business logic, new deployment options were added in to version 8.0.^[27] Compared to the previous version, latency has been reduced by almost 50 percent when measuring the average response time — door-to-door. The business logic latency has been lowered to 87 microseconds, compared to the previous 138 microseconds. These benchmarks have been measured in Intel's lab in the UK and more information will be jointly released by Intel and Cinnober during late March.^[28].

• TRADExpress RealTime Clearing is marketed as a comprehensive clearing and real-time risk management solution, which makes post-trade management an efficient and secure process – from trade execution to settlement.

• Scila Surveillance is marketed as a turnkey system that offers financial markets, regulators and market participants a seamless route from the detection of market abuse to presentable evidence. The system is also implemented for equities (Burgundy), commodities (Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange) and derivatives (EDX London) markets.

• TESS—TRADExpress Streamlined Services is a SaaS (Software as a Service) offering for trading venues comprising a full exchange solution with a set of add-ons, including market surveillance. The core of TESS is a preconfigured version of the proven TRADExpress Trading System.

• TRADExpress Event System is an application with versions, one for betting and for financial event derivatives, such as binary options and range futures.

• TRADExpress Index Engine was touted as the world's fastest real-time index engine by Cinnober at the time of its release. It connects to market data feeds or directly to feeds from trading veues, calculates and disseminates the indexes.^[29]

• Scila Compliance provides investment banks, brokers and market participants a tool to ensure they act in accordance with regulations, market rules and their own internal principles and risk policies.

Key People

• Nils-Robert Persson, Chairman of the Board
• Javier Tordable, CEO
• Martin Adelsköld, Head of Support & Operations
• Veronica Augustsson, Head of Sales
• Fredrik Backlund, Head of Marketing & Corporate Communication
• Anna Märta Göransson, Head of Finance
• Christina Jacobsson, Head of Human Resources
• Peter Lenti, CTO, Head of Products

(*Hans Öberg, Head of Customization

References

1. ↑ Cinnober Financial Technology. Cinnober.
2. ↑ Cinnober. Intel FasterFS - The Financial Services Site.
3. ↑ Cinnober Signs Three Major Contracts With Euronext.liffe. Bobsguide.
4. ↑ Press Release. Cinnober.
5. ↑ Turquoise decides on Cinnober’s Tradexpress. Computer Weekly.
6. ↑ ATSs Favor Independent Tech Supplier. AdvancedTrading.
7. ↑ Press Release. Cinnober.
8. ↑ Press release. Cinnober.
9. ↑ Website. Alternativa Aktiemarknaden.
10. ↑ Press Release. Cinnober.
11. ↑ The world's fastest commodity exchange now fully operational. Press Release.
12. ↑ SET awards IT contract to Cinnober. National Multi Media.
13. ↑ Deutsche Borse Taps Cinnober New Market Surveillance Technology. Cinnober.
14. ↑ Cinnober to upgrade Borsa Italiana’s market data dissemination solution. Cinnober.
15. ↑ Cinnober Appoints Pers-Anders Häll-Bedman as Deputy CEO. MondoVisione.
16. ↑ Cinnober adds SaaS exchange offering to repertoire. Finextra.
17. ↑ Cinnober Releases TRADExpress Trading System Version 8.0. Mondovisione.
18. ↑ TradExpress RealTime Clearing contract. Finextra.
19. ↑ Press Release. Cinnober.
20. ↑ Press Release. Cinnober.
21. ↑ Article. Wall Street & Technology.
22. ↑ Press Release. Cinnober.
23. ↑ Cinnober takes on clearers with all-purpose system. Financial News.
24. ↑ Press Release. Cinnober.
25. ↑ Press release. BNet.
26. ↑ Press release. Cinnober.
27. ↑ Press Release. Cinnober.
28. ↑ Press Release. Cinnober.
29. ↑ Cinnober Releases World's Fastest Real-Time Index Engine - Microsecond Continuous Updates With Superior Flexibility. Mondo Visione.