IIAwards - Review of Moscow Exchange

As part of the recently announced IIAwards, in which we celebrate innovations in the fintech and crypto industry, today we bring you Moscow Exchange.

Moscow Exchange (MOEX), the largest exchange group in Russia, operates trading markets in equities, bonds, derivatives, the foreign exchange market, money markets and precious metals. The Moscow Exchange Group also operates Russia's central securities depository (National Settlement Depository) and the country's largest clearing service provider (National Clearing Centre). The exchange is a result of the December 2011 merger of the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX) and the Russian Trading System. As of the beginning of 2018, the Moscow Exchange takes:

Moscow Exchange ranks among the world’s top 20 exchanges by total capitalization of shares traded, and also among the 10 largest exchange platforms for bonds and derivatives trading. What is more, securities of over 700 issuers are admitted to trading on the equity and bond markets of Moscow Exchange. The Equity & Bond Market is a key platform for Russian businesses to raise capital and for domestic and international investors to access equity and debt investment opportunities. The marketplace is the main trading venue for Russian stocks as well as government, municipal and corporate bonds. 16 companies have placed stock via Moscow Exchange, raising a total of nearly RUB200 B. On the fixed income side, more than 484 bond issues were placed, raising more than RUB3.4T for issuers.

Additionally, Moscow Exchange is one of the 10 largest exchange platforms for derivatives trading globally. The Derivatives Market facilitates trading of options contracts on, as well as futures contracts on indices, shares of both Russian and foreign companies, currency pairs, precious metals, energy and agricultural products. Futures on the RTS Index ranked sixth among the world's most actively traded derivatives on stock market indices according to data from the Futures Industry Association as of June 2014. Futures contracts on the US dollar-Russian ruble are ranked first in global liquidity, according to the Futures Industry Association. As of 2014, 58 types of futures and 18 types of options are traded on the Exchange.

Moscow Exchange’s new and flexible IT architecture utilizes a modular principle that enables it to employ all of the best practices currently available, and to add new functional modules in the future relatively easily, without the need to revamp the entire system. The Exchange is becoming more transparent and accessible to both domestic participants and foreign customers and counterparties. Moscow Exchange is also expanding partnerships with global providers that connect the Exchange to global financial systems.

Market participants and service suppliers can access the Russian markets via the Moscow Exchange’s point of presence in London via the largest European DPC, which is operated by Equinix. In the infrastructure domain, Moscow Exchange consolidated all of its trading systems to a single data center, greatly simplifying access for clients, reducing support costs and ensuring stability of our production systems (achieving 99.99% system uptime). The Exchange transitioned its network to 10 GB bandwidth, further reducing access latency for collocating clients. The Exchange utilizes two simple, streamlined platforms that non-collocating clients can use to gain physical connectivity. These platforms are Universal Schema and ConnectME.

The forward market is traded from 10:00 to 23:49:59. The Moscow Exchange stock market works less. It opens at 10:00 and closes at 18:39:59. The opening auction works from 09:50 to 10:00 and the opening price of stock is determined in this auction.

The National Clearing Centre (NCC), which is part of the Moscow Exchange Group, acts as a clearing house and central counterparty to the Russian financial market, ensuring the stable functioning of its infrastructure by using a comprehensive risk management framework. The CCP guarantees the fulfilment of all obligations arising from transactions in which it acts as a central counterparty. This is achieved by using a multi-level risk management structure, which includes initial margin requirements, CCP’s dedicated capital (‘skin in the game’), members’ contributions to market-specific default funds, as well as NCC’s own assets. Russia’s CCP is one of world’s best capitalized with RUB34B of capital, a reflection of its strong commitment to the soundness of its clearing and settlement infrastructure. Fitch’s evaluation of the NCC’s reliability as part of the Russian financial market’s infrastructure resulted in an upgrade to its long term Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) to BBB – which is Russia’s sovereign rating– with a ‘Stable’ outlook.

On 27 August 2020, the Bank of Russia included Moscow Exchange in the register of operators of financial platforms. According to the legislation on financial platforms adopted in July 2020, all financial platforms operators must be registered with the Bank of Russia. The Exchange is the first operator to be included in the register. This will allow Moscow Exchange to roll out its financial Marketplace, through which individuals will be able to access the offerings of different banks and financial organizations online, and to compare products and purchase them remotely. The platform will bring together consumers and providers such as banks and other financial services providers.