Nasdaq and Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced a global “modernization blueprint” for local markets. The companies are introducing a new suite of solutions for market operators to enhance liquidity, facilitate capital flows, and drive growth, while upholding performance, security and resilience.
Today, market operators navigate unique complexities, including emerging technology acceleration, highly competitive environments, regulatory standards, and constantly evolving client needs. Yet, their ability to innovate and modernize at pace requires ever greater expertise and advanced technological capabilities.
The blueprint plans to use AWS’s global network and low-latency traffic routing to support frictionless, high-speed connections for markets and investors around the world. This connectivity will allow market participants to interact seamlessly and transparently across global exchanges with minimal latency, fostering globally inter-connected markets built on a common data lake architecture.
“Local economies flourish when capital markets are robust, and global investors can confidently channel capital across borders. Conversely, a strong global economy is reliant on local markets that are highly dynamic, where innovators can scale, and capital can seamlessly connect. Powering both creates a virtuous cycle of value creation, driving economic growth and wealth generation,” said Adena Friedman, chair and CEO at Nasdaq, in a statement. “The unique combination of Nasdaq’s technology expertise and AWS’s advanced infrastructure enables us to solve the industry’s most complex challenges that have hampered the growth and scalability of markets around the world. By reducing complicatedness, friction, and fragmentation we are fortifying the financial system with greater connectivity and resilience and enabling a new era of economic growth and prosperity.”
“Building on our 15-year partnership, Nasdaq and AWS are furthering our shared vision to develop technology that simplifies and streamlines capital markets,” said Matt Garman, CEO at AWS, in a statement. “Together, we are helping market operators provide seamless connectivity for markets and investors anywhere in the world, with a blueprint for modernization and innovation, and the ability to unlock new opportunities for innovation and growth in capital markets.”
The first three key components of the blueprint include:
- Bringing together AWS, exchange, and trading participant infrastructure in close proximity to power global capital markets: Nasdaq and AWS are offering a new solution for market operators that addresses resilience, security, proximity and latency demands by positioning AWS services, exchange and trading participant systems in a common location. AWS will provide connectivity between infrastructures and services to provide low-latency, high bandwidth connectivity for global applications while operators can retain overall control of their data.
- Nasdaq Eqlipse, a technology platform that integrates client community feedback and Nasdaq’s development investments, including platform capabilities, application architecture, APIs and product integration. The solutions feature cloud-ready applications and globally standardized APIs with proven interoperability across the full trade lifecycle.
- A services deployment model that provides market operators with access to both companies’ capital markets expertise to help reduce operational heavy lifting, consequently reducing transformation risks.
The blueprint delivers key benefits to market operators so that they can drive innovation; specifically:
- Accelerate and de-risk modernization strategies for market operators by delivering an agile technology stack and globally standardized services and workflows that empower the market operators to focus on attracting liquidity from global investors.
- Provide greater flexibility for both innovation and monetization for market operators by leveraging modern technology infrastructure to capitalize on the potential of AI, enhance their data and insight-based services, and develop new products and functionality to the benefit of all market participants.
- Promote transparency, enhance liquidity and protect market integrity by strengthening trading, clearing, and settlement operations and reducing barriers for local, regional and global investors with secure access.
JSE, BMV and Nasdaq’s Nordic markets sign on
Nasdaq has expanded its modernization partnership with both Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) and Mexico’s Grupo BMV. Additionally, Nasdaq’s Nordic markets have announced their intention to modernize their infrastructure in line with the blueprint.
The JSE is collaborating with Nasdaq around the development of services for colocation, data intelligence and insights, and client interactions. The blueprint service deployment model will support the South African bourse’s technology enablement journey to modernize its technology, leverage edge computing infrastructure, explore artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver innovative market solutions and drive operational efficiencies.
Leila Fourie, Group CEO of the JSE, said in a statement: “This strategic collaboration is an extension of the long-standing relationship the JSE has with Nasdaq. The market infrastructure developed in partnership with Nasdaq and AWS will open the door to greater global market interconnectivity with minimal latency, which will support increased liquidity and capital flows between the US and South African capital markets. We will be setting new standards for the industry through innovation and technology that creates value for market participants.”
Building on the market modernization efforts with Nasdaq, Grupo BMV is analyzing how it can build on its existing technology partnership across its clearing and central securities depository platforms by leveraging the services deployment model. They are also evaluating the long-term potential for cloud infrastructure in Mexico and its ability to create a robust, high-integrity ecosystem that reduces barriers to market participation, enhances operational efficiency, and accelerates the adoption of emerging technologies across the Mexican financial landscape.
Jorge Alegría, CEO of Grupo BMV, said in a statement: “Our post-trade technology infrastructure is undergoing a transformative evolution, with Nasdaq playing a pivotal role as our enabling partner, as we look toward the next decade. We are committed to driving innovation, enhancing operational efficiency and proactively addressing the evolving needs of our local and international customers.”
In line with the blueprint, Nasdaq plans to incorporate the managed infrastructure model within its Nordic markets. Starting with the Nordic derivatives market, Nasdaq will be able to provide additional services to clients, powered by AWS infrastructure which allows Nasdaq’s clients to rapidly scale their GPU usage within Nasdaq’s own data center in Väsby, Sweden and harness cloud services to innovate faster.
Roland Chai, president of European Market Services at Nasdaq, said in a statement: “The success of Nasdaq’s Nordic markets has demonstrated the extraordinary power of modern market infrastructure to attract international sources of capital. Incorporating AWS’s advanced cloud infrastructure is expected to elevate our markets on the global stage and help to power the next generation of growth across Europe.”