ABN Amro Clearing Adds Futures Markets to Fidessa EMS

The two firms started their collaboration in June last year, when ABN Amro Clearing replaced all of its in-house and vendor systems with Fidessa’s XTP offering, harmonizing its global multi-asset access. 

The clearinghouse has announced that in its EMS, market participants can now access the futures markets. ABN Amro’s users will be able to reach 110 futures, options, equities and foreign exchange (FX) markets from 11 different locations. 

This is part of the firm’s strategy to leverage the Mifid II compliance technology offered by Fidessa. Christian Voigt, senior regulatory adviser at Fidessa, tells WatersTechnology that ABN Amro Clearing will benefit from the extensive upgrade program Fidessa has undertaken to tackle the issues arising from the new regulatory regime. 

The EMS has been redesigned to address general infrastructure requirements, such as stress testing and business clock synchronization. The enhancements to Fidessa’s EMS, according to Voigt, can be categorized into three parts. 

“Firstly, Mifid II requires firms to capture, record and share more data relating to an order or a trade,” he says. “Secondly, it introduces minimum requirements as to how the buy- and sell-side must monitor and control its own trading, in particular, if algorithms or third parties are involved. Finally, the regulation triggers significant enhancements to audit streams as firms must be able to evidence their compliance with all of the above.”

With this partnership extension, says Voigt, ABN Amro seeks to answer all three regulatory challenges in a cost-effective and standardized way in the derivatives space.