Digital Vega launches execution and workflow solution

Multi-dealer FX options services provider Digital Vega has launched a new execution-and-workflow management solution called Intelligent Execution (I.E) engine. It was developed with the input of major systematic asset managers.

London-based Digital Vega is a specialist provider of foreign exchange option-pricing, execution and workflow-management solutions. It is backed by State Street Bank and Deutsche Boerse.

The I.E solution fully automates the option-trading life cycle, including order uploads, validation, price checking, execution and confirmation.

The move to automate smaller but more labour-intensive trades could generate significant efficiencies for execution desks, giving traders more time to focus on complex, high-value transactions.

"Since the launch of Digital Vega, we have continued to look for opportunities to bring innovation to a part of the FX market – options trading – that has so far been slow to embrace automation. We are now getting a real sense that as a result of increasing pressures on costs, as well as regulatory compliance, long-held attitudes are starting to change, and established workflows and practices are being questioned. FX option users are increasingly looking to introduce efficiencies," said Mark Suter, executive chairman of Digital Vega.

We have continued to look for opportunities to bring innovation to a part of the FX market – options trading – that has so far been slow to embrace automation
Mark Suter, Digital Vega

On I.E, all parameters are configurable to allow for changes in market conditions, risk limits and specific currency pair liquidity. Users can pair or net individual orders on the fly to further cut execution costs.

Since launching I.E, Digital Vega has started working on a new project aimed at improving underlying market liquidity, incorporating a fully cleared solution as and when such a service becomes available.

"Regulation, specifically the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid) II, will increasingly drive option flows into electronic channelsl, MTFs and OTFs in 2018. Our existing Medusa platform is already Mifid-compliant and we will file an MTF application later this year," Suter added.