Trading Technology Certification
Trading Technolody Certification Guidelines
As part of the The Financials Entities’ certification process of trading platforms, in order to help ensure that at-a-minimum a basis is established using the criteria listed below, we require applicants submit all requested information as described and any additional that may be asked for. The Certification process helps ensure that our supervisory responsibilities with regards to the dispute resolution process that the The Financials Entities facilitates will remain fair and equitable.
Some items in the following questionnaire below may not apply to you. For example, if the system is hosted on your licensee’s data servers, which you have no control of. Nonetheless, applicants must let us know of such arrangements and provide the The Financials Entities with minimum technical requirements to licensee’s infrastructure, as explained in the guidelines below.
In addition to questions, the The Financials Entities must review technology providers written procedures to address the security, capacity and integrity of trading, and confirm such procedures are being followed.
Certification Guidelines Questionnaire (To be completed by all applicants):
1. System security
- Authentication process
- Firewalls, Data encryption algorithm and suspicious activity monitoring
- Authorization process
- Periodic Testing
- System Administration procedures
5. Reporting and record keeping
- Authentication process
- Firewalls, Data encryption algorithm and suspicious activity monitoring
- Authorization process
- Periodic Testing
- System Administration procedures
2. System capacity
- Server infrastructure and system backup procedures
- Capacity monitoring procedures
- Stress-test procedure
- Software update procedure
6. Business continuitu/disaster recovery plan
- Authentication process
- Firewalls, Data encryption algorithm and suspicious activity monitoring
- Authorization process
- Periodic Testing
- System Administration procedures
3. Pricing and execution policy
- List of quote-feed providers
- Can broker set restrictions on trades? If yes, please describe.
- Does system maintain applied restrictions logs?
- Can broker adjust the price feed? If yes, please describe who can do so and under which circumstances?
- Does system has a manual price change/input logs?
- Does system has “bad print” or “price spike” protection?
- Can broker set or execute orders on behalf of clients?
- Does system maintain manual execution logs?
7. Business continuitu/disaster recovery plan
- The Financials Entities believes that disaster recovery and business continuity issues are of utmost importance and trading technology providers must take a proactive approach to ensure that they have an adequate disaster recovery plan in place.
Disaster Recovery plan must contain the following information:
- Backup Facilities
- Implementation of Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Plan
- Disruptions of Third-Parties
- Annual Testing
- Communication with the The Financials Entities
- Employee and Emergency Contact Information
4. Instrument and ordertypes
- All instruments available within platform
- List all types of orders that are available in the platform
Completed answers and requested information to the questions above should be submitted to the certification board of the The Financials Entities, either in Microsoft Word Format, or PDF format