Sponsored interview: Neil McGovern and Horace Chow of Sybase

Neil McGovern and Horace Chow discuss market trends, new regulation and areas of growth in the Asia region

The financial market is braced for a swath of new regulation, from a Group of 20 (G-20) obligation to clear standardised derivatives through central counterparties, to revised capital and liquidity requirements under Basel III.

In addition, regulators are determined to increase transparency in the market, and are putting in place strict pre- and post-trade reporting requirements.

The various rules will put huge technology demands on all market participants, with many needing risk management systems upgrades and enhanced analytics and reporting software.

Electronic trading is also playing an increasingly important role in financial markets – particularly given the G-20 requirement that standardised over-the-counter derivatives should trade on exchanges or electronic trading platforms. The Dodd-Frank Act in the US contains an explicit trading requirement via its swap execution facility rules, and the revised version of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive in the European Union is expected to take a similar approach.

Even without regulation, however, electronic trading volumes have increased in cash equity and foreign exchange markets, driven by an array of algorithmic and high-frequency trading firms. Increasingly, being able to react quickly to market events means the difference between a profit and a loss.

In the first part of this sponsored interview, Neil McGovern, senior director of product marketing at Sybase, discusses new regulation, the growth of electronic trading, and the use of complex event processing (CEP) technology.

In the second part (21:30), Horace Chow, vice-president and general manager, North Asia region at Sybase, discusses how clients are responding to the challenges, and identifies some of the key trends in Asia.

Questions in part 1 of the interview include:

• Can you describe features of your CEP system that can help high-frequency and algorithmic traders?

• What trends are you seeing in the market?

• How is Asia different or the same to other regions globally?

• What are the main concerns (and misunderstandings) from investors in Asia regarding the implementation of CEP technology?

• How do you see the user profile of CEP changing? Do you expect the proportion of buy side to sell side to increase or vice versa?

• What are the factors that need to be considered in implementing a CEP system?

• How has the recent volatility in the markets affected electronic trading?

• Have exchanges and other trading venues in Asia done enough to implement tools to monitor and analyse trading on their exchanges?

Questions in part 2 include:

• What trends are you seeing in the market?

• In which area of Asia are you seeing most growth?

• How is Asia different or the same to other regions globally for you?

• What are the main concerns (and misunderstandings) from investors in Asia regarding implementing technology such as CEP?