Smarts Group, the world leader in real-time market surveillance and operational control for exchanges, regulators and brokers, has agreed to provide Plus Markets Group (PMG) with a new market control and supervision platform in order to support the integrity of PMG’s expanding market offering.
Following a rigorous and systematic evaluation process, PMG selected SMARTS Integrity Platform as their preferred platform for market control and supervision.
The project will see Smarts Group working closely with OMX, who has been selected by PMG as prime contractor to deliver the OMX trading platform as well the SMARTS Integrity Platform. The project incorporates design, hardware, networking, software licenses, delivery and overall ITS operations by both Smarts and OMX.
A new service model will be delivered to PMG, SMARTSOnline. SMARTSOnline is the newest extension to the Smarts Group's product offering. It is a fully hosted real-time service where all surveillance technology, software and alert design is outsourced to the Smarts Group.
John Crackett, Head of Information Technology at Plus Markets Group, said "This agreement forms a key part of PMG's strategy to improve our technical infrastructure to meet the new opportunities presented by MiFID, utilizing the best available technologies. The new trading and surveillance systems will provide firm foundations to support the further substantial extension of our trading services to support some 5,000 securities."
Paul McKeown, Branch Manager for OMX in the UK, said "The PMG project demonstrates the unique strengths of the combined Smarts-OMX solution - OMX for trading and Smarts Group for surveillance. We look forward to working with Smarts again on future projects."
Mr Thomas Jones, Chief Executive Officer of the Smarts Group, said: "We are delighted with the decision of Plus Markets Group and their commitment to the SMARTS product, and to work with OMX again in delivering the solution. By choosing SMARTS Integrity Platform, PMG will become part of a global community of over 30 exchanges and regulators. For an exchange in a cross-market cross-border world, our system offers a standard which will facilitate information sharing at a technological level. This project establishes our new approach of delivering our technology as part of a managed service, which allows the customer to focus on their business while leaving the technology and operations to Smarts and OMX. The PMG decision further enhances SMARTS' position as the leading solution for real-time security market surveillance and market control."