Hyannis Port Research Support to China Stock Connects Now Fully Operational

The platform includes its two pre-trade risk products for low-latency market access—Riskbot and Softbot. These two products provide more than 50 customizable risk parameters, ranging from pre-trade fat-finger checks to full organization-wide portfolio risk checks. 

The Shanghai-Hong Kong and Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect schemes were launched in November 2014 and December 2016 respectively and allow international and mainland Chinese investors to use their trading and clearing facilities while trading securities in each others’ markets. 

The Connects comprise around 7.17 percent of total equity turnover on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and are estimated to grow following MSCI’s inclusion of China A-shares on its MSCI Emerging Markets Index. 

Anthony Amicangioli, CEO at HPR tells WatersTechnology that HPR has been live and operational with the stock connects for six months, including a beta testing period with one of its larger clients. “Full ramp-up took approximately one month and the feedback has been extremely positive thus far. We’re very excited to now push it into full production,” he says.

HPR “regionalized” the platform and the risk checks to address for local short-selling and wash-sale rules. Amicangioli says the platform has been designed in a way that makes adding support for new markets relatively simple from a technology standpoint. 

“However, we take QA (quality assurance) extremely seriously and thus the testing process we engage in is extensive. This is a big part of the reason that our technology has been flawless, with virtually no service disruptions in over five years of operations,” he adds.

Moving forward, HPR has plans to further expand its presence in Asia-Pacific, in markets like Japan, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. It has been active in Australia since 2014 and now has about 15 percent of the market’s equities volume going through its systems. 

“To us, Asia represents a significant opportunity given the investment flows into the region and the continued modernization of the individual markets. We see growing interest in the Connect platforms following China’s recent inclusion in the MSCI index, and with new platforms like the ETF Connect expected to come online later this year we think their relevance will only increase,” Amicangioli says.