UARTET FS

ActivePivot
TM

CUSTOMER CASE STUDY

Challenges
n Compute clients net positions and
equity more often to better control
risk
n Provide clients with better and faster “We wanted to move from an architecture that computed our customer positions,
margin calculations to increase re-valuations and margin calls a few times per day to instead allow for real-time
trading potential calculations. At the same time, we also wanted to provide our traders with an
n Give traders a more up-to-date view
analytic tool that would provide a much deeper understanding of their clients’
activity. Quartet’s ActivePivot provided the platform to cover all of these requirements
of their open risk positions
whereas a traditional approach would have mandated several applications.”
n Provide real-time client positions to - Asif Adatia, Chief Information Officer
other risk engines
CMC Markets, a global leader in online derivatives trading
n Provide a tool for analysis of client When CMC Markets was established in 1989, the vision was to create an
trading positions with multiple institutional styled trading service that was accessible to all – a vision that
views, slice and dice became a reality in 1996 when CMC Markets released the world’s first online
Internet Foreign Exchange trading platform. While CMC Markets has expanded
Solution and now offers CFDs and Financial Spread Betting, the commitment and
n Quartet component:
faithfulness to the original vision remains rock-solid.
- ActivePivot, real-time,
       object oriented, OLAP server
CMC Markets’ products and services have been recognized around the world
n Middleware: with an extensive network of offices around the globe to provide local support
- Information Bus: Apache Open MQ to their clients. CMC Markets’ success can be attributed to a company-wide goal:
Data Source:
the creation of advantage for our customers through product and technical
n
innovation.
- CMC Markets Marketmaker®
n User Interface: Problems Faced
- MS Excel CMC Markets is an online electronic broker who provides their retail clients with
a platform to trade across multiple asset classes, instrument types and countries.
Benefits Client trading activity and net equity position, computed as the sum of cash
n Increase trading capabilities for their deposit, potential gain and loss, margin requirement and daily profit and loss,
clients due to a more up-to-date net must be monitored as frequently as possible to minimize risk and to control
equity position unwanted trading positions. Profit and loss depends not only on new orders
n Manage large amounts of Key
being executed during the day, but also on changes in underlying market data,
Performance Indicators (KPI’s) with asset prices and foreign exchange rates. Institutional customers, day traders
limits and real-time alerts.  and even retail customers now trade globally and as a result, it is not unusual
that a customer position may change every minute or every few seconds. CMC
n Enhance  risk controls Markets needed to move from an architecture that computed customer positions,
n Leverage a single component to
re-valuations and any collateral requirements from a few times a day a day to one
build both real-time position and where they would be able to have this information generated in real-time. At the
margin calculation same time, they also wanted to provide their traders with an analytic tool that
would provide a much deeper understanding of client activity.
 UARTET FS
Chosen Strategy
CMC Markets had a choice to build their own specific in-memory margin and
position server but realized that with Quartet’s event driven OLAP component
they could have exactly such a solution, but one that could be built quickly and
at the same time, provide a much more flexible reporting platform. Rather than
building a custom application, imbedding ActivePivot in their trading platform
provided CMC markets with a flexible and powerful operational business
intelligence (BI) solution

They had a set of key operational requirements, which were to:

n compute clients net positions and equity more often to better control
risk
n provide clients with better and faster margin calculations to increase
trading potential
n give traders a more up-to-date view of their open risk positions
n provide real-time client positions to other risk engines
n provide a tool for analysis of client trading positions with multiple views,
slice and dice

With ActivePivot they were able to accomplish all of the above as well as put
About Quartet FS themselves in a position to re-use ActivePivot’s real-time capabilities to develop
Quartet FS was founded in other critical application within the organization – all in a cost effective manner.
response to a demand by industries
with complex business models
and timely decision-making L- T IME AGGREGA
REA TIO
requirements. To date this has seen N
Quartet FS work largely with the
financial sector but our technology
crosses many disciplines including
risk management, e-commerce,
transportation, telecommunication, 5th Loss VaR Desk

logistics, and of course financial Product

LISTED
OTC
Desk A
-30%
-15%
Desk B
-12%
-8%
Total
-28%
-7% 25
Vector Drill In

markets, all of which demand

Total -23% -10% -12%
20
15

accurate and current information

10
5
0

to perform real-time analysis and

5%

5%

%
5%

%
-5

15

25

35

45
-2

-1
render timely decisions.

ActivePivot, our real-time, event Object Stream

driven, object oriented business
intelligence (BI) component can be
easily and quickly integrated into
existing architecture to provide
proven, flexible, true real-time
answers that are adaptable to meet
different business requirements. Benefits Realized
With the strategy now employed, CMC Markets at present enjoys real-time/intra-
day client activity, margining and collateral monitoring as well as a user-friendly
London
43 Eagle street operational BI platform – all attributed to the use of ActivePivot. They benefit
London WC1R 4AT, UK from an real-time analytic solution which provides well-defined positions and
Tel: +44 20 7632 6910 complex calculations along with a flexible analysis tool to help the traders find
Fax: +44 20 7831 7700 better trading strategies. The fact that they now have immediate access to real-
time risk, position, and P&L data, it became immediately obvious that the traders
New York could, and already have, increased their productivity and profitability using
11 Skyline Drive
this new tool.
Hawthorne, NY 10532 USA
Tel: +1 646 688 4442
Fax: +1 646 688 4451 To summarize, with the ActivePivot application developed, CMC Markets can now:

Paris
130 rue de Rivoli
75001 Paris, France
Tel: +33 1 40 13 91 00
Email: info@quartetfs.com
Web: www.quartetfs.com
n increase trading capabilities for their clients now that they have a more
up-to-date net equity position.
n manage large amounts of Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) with limits
and real-time alerts. These enhance their risk controls.
n use one single tool to build their real-time position and margin
calculation as well as provide the analytical multi-dimension analysis
needed to help traders find better trading strategies