Import substitution in the terminal stage

The Moscow Exchange has announced a tender for the development of a new information and trading terminal for over-the-counter trading, deepening the import substitution project for Bloomberg services. Experts and market participants estimate the cost of work at up to 1 billion rubles. However, they specify, large companies have their own trading terminals, which may reduce interest in the product.

Interviewed by Kommersant, market participants estimated the cost of creating a new information and analytical terminal for the over-the-counter market of the Moscow Exchange in the amount of 150 million rubles. up to 1 billion rubles The request for proposals for the project, which will include the trading part and information and analytical functionality, as well as technical support and subsequent development, was placed by the exchange on December 7 on the RTS-Tender site. The work must be completed within seven months. As Aleksey Kostovarov, partner of AB Liniya Prava, explains, a price will be formed based on the results of consideration of the proposals received.

Viktor Lovchikov, Managing Director of the Department of Exchange Information and Technological Services at the Moscow Exchange, specified that the terminal is planned to be created on the basis of the MOEX Dealing solution, which meets the requirements of the information protection regulator and is designed to conclude off-exchange transactions with various assets. Its functionality will be significantly expanded by the information and analytical part, chats, price data, Mr. Lovchikov emphasized.

Andrey Burilov, Managing Director for Information Technology and Member of the Board of the Moscow Exchange, spoke about plans to create an analogue of the Bloomberg terminal in August: “Many people can show quotes, but interaction is necessary, and this is our task.”

To date, the industry in the Russian Federation is the QUIK terminal (focused on exchange trading), which is being developed by the Novosibirsk ARQA Technologie, said Dmitry Alexandrov, managing director of Ivolga Capital. But in order to become an alternative to Bloomberg, the expert clarifies, the terminal requires significant improvement in terms of analytical and information resources.

In addition to ARQA, a number of software developers for banks, primarily Diasoft and FIS, may compete for the contract, Mr. Aleksandrov believes.

Kommersant’s interlocutor in a Russian electronics manufacturer believes that it is possible to create a terminal with the help of domestic specialists, since “it does not technically differ from the usual workplace of a broker or bank employee.” The main problem, clarifies the source of Kommersant, will be specialized software. Due to the tight deadlines, the selected contractor may go for the processing of a finished foreign platform, including the Asian one, Anna Avakimyan, chief analyst at RegBlock, believes.

Actually, Bloomberg in the trading part is the over-the-counter market, experts explain. Anyone who used foreign services can become consumers of the new terminal. Sergey Ryabov, Business Development Director at MasterChain, notes that clients of Bloomberg and its peers “are accustomed to the fact that transactions within the terminal are legally significant, that is, the operator must eliminate the risks of compromising data on the network, for which distributed ledger technology with function of GOST-cryptography”. In the future, brokers from friendly countries can also connect to such a terminal, adds Mr. Alexandrov.

Prices for Bloomberg terminals started from $2-3 thousand per month and depended on the volume of services provided, the number of users, including remote services.

Most of the products of the Moscow Exchange are organized in a batch format. When distributing a new terminal, the package may rise in price by 20–50 thousand rubles. per month, says Ms. Avakimyan.

The main risk of the project, according to Dmitry Alexandrov, is that players may be reluctant to abandon current systems: “Brokers and banks already have an established infrastructure, and additional functions should be significant enough to abandon existing working solutions.”

Ksenia Kulikova, Timofey Kornev, Ekaterina Volkova