Fidessa's integrated Market Abuse Monitoring service now available in Europe

Insider dealing and market manipulation checks fully integrated with Fidessa's trading workflow

London, 11th March 2013 – Fidessa group plc (LSE: FDSA) has today unveiled a new service that provides fully integrated market abuse monitoring for its European sell-side clients. Fidessa’s Market Abuse Monitor delivers fully automated surveillance and detection capabilities that flag behaviour likely to give rise to suspicions of insider dealing and market manipulation.

The existing Market Abuse Directive (MAD), introduced in 2003, compels firms to notify their national regulator of any reasonable suspicions in these areas. The current review of MAD will bring increased obligations on firms, including criminal sanctions in the event of intentional market abuse. Sell-side firms are under greater pressure than ever before to demonstrate that they have adequate systems in place to monitor trading operations, identify suspicious or abusive activities and report them in a timely manner.

Fidessa's new monitoring service enables firms to get ahead of these regulations. Whilst a number of standalone products have been available in the market for some time, Fidessa's Market Abuse Monitor is the only service that is fully integrated with the Fidessa workflows and market data. This means that it can be up and running very rapidly and, more importantly, offers a level of integrity and capability that other products simply can’t provide. In addition, the latest artificial intelligence techniques are used to minimise the number of false positives.

James Blackburn, Marketing Director at Fidessa, said: "ESMA has raised the bar for market abuse detection for brokerage firms across Europe. As recent high profile cases have shown, falling foul of the regulations has enormous reputational as well as financial implications. By fully integrating the Market Abuse Monitor into our trading workflow we can provide brokers with a streamlined, straightforward and effective means of addressing these challenges. This means that they are in the best possible shape to meet the inevitable rise in complexity and overlap in European market abuse regulation and enforcement."