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About Arcontech

On 17th February 2009 Knowledge Technology Solutions PLC was renamed and is now incorporated under the name: Arcontech Group PLC (AIM: ARC). Arcontech Group PLC’s key trading subsidiary is Arcontech Limited.

Founded in 1979, Arcontech provides software products and bespoke solutions for the collection, processing, distribution and presentation of time-sensitive financial markets data.

To understand what Arcontech does it is helpful to understand “market data”. Market data consists of prices e.g.; stock prices or foreign exchange rates, along with other relevant content that supports buy or sell decision making or that is generated when financial instruments are bought or sold. Market data can therefore be used to describe anything from historic prices and information such as that contained in historical databases and past corporate actions, end of day data used to value funds or portfolios to real-time prices delivered using low-latency technologies and used in pricing engines. Some examples of market data include; published prices, request for quotes, trade requests and executed trade details for instruments such as; foreign exchange, money market instruments, fixed income instruments, equities, other securities and their derivatives; options, swaps and warrants. These instruments can be traded on an exchange or OTC (over-the-counter). In addition to supporting or being generated from market transactions, developing regulation towards making the transactions fairer and more transparent for all market participants provides additional requirements such as reporting or storage of data for regulatory authorities. Market Data then is the very essence of the financial marketplace.

Arcontech is a software house. We do not carry market data but provide the means for our clients who are in the main large banks, to do so. We are therefore independent of market data vendors (such as Refinitiv or Bloomberg) but at the same time we partner with them to ensure our software integrates with vendor data and systems as well as our client’s data and systems.

We have grown by delivering dependable, cost-effective solutions to the financial community which enable our clients to manage and gain full value from the market data they consume and the market data they create.

The solutions we provide are in the majority charged on a recurring license fee basis which allows our clients to benefit from certain further core development (to incorporate new improvements or as a result of external factors) at no additional cost. We also provide custom solutions as required and which may be charged on a once off plus maintenance basis.

Arcontech built its first digital market data products in 1996 and in 2004 enabled the Bank of England to publish auction results to all vendors at the same time, using MVCS – Arcontech’s Multi-Vendor Contribution System. Since then, we have continued to develop new, innovative systems and products whilst taking advantage of leading edge technology.

We have deep knowledge and experience of a wide range of technical concepts and applications as they apply to market data and the ability to combine the best from each. Key areas of expertise include:

  • Data publishing and contributions
  • Cross vendor platform integration
  • Data caching and transformation
  • Enterprise data distribution
  • Leading edge Excel add-in
  • Desktop display
  • Consulting and custom development

Arcontech Market Data Distribution Platform

The Arcontech market data distribution platform is the collective term for our software. It enables the collection, aggregation, manipulation, redistribution and presentation of market data in real-time from multiple sources to multiple destinations. Sources can include Vendor feeds (e.g. Refinitiv ELEKTRON, Bloomberg B-PIPE) exchanges, inter-dealer brokers and trading venues as well as data contributions from spreadsheets and internal pricing systems. Destinations include; internal systems, multiple third parties and vendors (e.g. Refinitiv MLIP2, Contribution Channel, Bloomberg MPF, Factset, Tradeweb), users of Excel (remote and local) within the organisation and real-time streaming web updates.

Our platform is low latency, flexible, fully resilient, scalable, compliant and secure, with a full authentication and entitlements system. It is also extensible to receive instruments of any asset class, from any number of contributors and to provide controlled re-distribution to unlimited destinations.

Our software interoperates with other systems (such as Refinitiv RTDS (TREP) and exchanges) via existing de-facto standards and interfaces (such as SSL (Marketfeed), RSSL (OMM), FIX and OpenMAMA) and via its own comprehensive APIs. This means we can provide cost effective solutions to integrate with or replace incumbent systems.