George Macdonald - 6th of February 2019
At MACD, we are always looking for new ways to make markets more efficient. Our hosted OMS already manages the electronic trading flows for over 35 banks. But there are still many processes yet to go electronic - there is a lot of innovation in financial markets around the corner.
After 30 years working in financial markets, one thing that I have learnt is that there is always change. When the stock markets went electronic in the 1990s, this was a major wave of digitisation - since then, markets have continued to evolve.
As a company, it is important to keep moving forward, adapting, and changing. And taking a risk and being prepared to fail. Although an idea had been brewing for several years, a lot of different doubts ran through my mind:
I found myself constantly questioning the direction that I was going in. But that is a good emotion. It felt the same when I launched GLOX, our market OMS, 19 years ago, which was very difficult at the start.
First of all, I made a list of ideas for a product that we could build. Then I visited some of our customers and partners and, based on their feedback, decided on a minimum viable product to get started on.
I realised that one area that has a lot of potential for change is the distribution of information in financial markets. There are many different channels, and it is very unstructured - both for the publisher and the consumer.
Market commentary - qualified opinions - are published via chat, e-mail and proprietary systems. It is very difficult for anyone to keep an overview of all this information. With unbundling it is getting worse.
So I came up with the idea for a new tool to digitalise communication within financial markets - an intelligent financial network. Our project team developed the prototype using Angular, an HTML5 framework, so that we can also use the technology for other new web front ends.
Some advantages over other tools are e.g:
For the beta test phase, beginning in March 2019, we have already a good mix of participants in the market: a private bank, a content provider, a system integrator and a stock exchange. Initially we will run the beta tests in Switzerland, but the intention is to roll out internationally.
We are looking for partners who want to be involved in the process and help us bring a solution to the market. If you too would like to join us, please get in touch!
You can contact Gianmarco lo Nigro for more details and questions.
MACD is committed to innovation and making financial markets more efficient. Join us and help make the product better!