Given the industry transformation taking place, IIROC must be adaptable and flexible in supporting increasingly fast-paced, technology-driven demands for innovation by providing efficient and up-to-the-minute market oversight. As a result, in its Strategic Plan, IIROC committed to improving its existing surveillance system and, following a robust selection process, named Nasdaq as the vendor of choice. Today’s launch is the culmination of the two organizations’ work to build and test a world-class system.

“IIROC is positioned at the forefront of market surveillance in Canada, thanks to Nasdaq’s real-time, multi-asset, state-of-the-art SMARTS technology,” says Victoria Pinnington, IIROC’s Senior Vice-President, Market Regulation. “We are setting the stage for our future with a system designed to improve how we oversee securities trading on debt and equity markets, by opening the door to use artificial intelligence that is more analytical and predictive.”

The SMARTS technology allows IIROC to better detect and respond to potential market abuses, inspiring greater confidence among all market participants that Canada’s capital markets are operating fairly and with integrity, and that investors are protected. IIROC directly manages and maintains the system, which monitors up to one billion transactions daily in real-time and supports cross-asset surveillance and investigations. IIROC’s market surveillance team will be able to more quickly detect trading anomalies across multiple products and firms, and identify and respond to emerging trends in an efficient manner. For example, new visualization tools take multiple sources of data and distil them into a single snapshot, giving IIROC an immediate and clear picture of the activity so that they can quickly assess next steps.

"IIROC has rigorously pursued staying at the global forefront of regulatory market oversight and surveillance innovation,” said Lars Ottersgård, Executive Vice President and Head of Market Technology, Nasdaq. "In our long-term relationship, we have proudly collaborated with IIROC in helping them achieve their goals in maintaining a fair, transparent and safe capital market ecosystem for Canada, as well as its market participants and investors.”