The Astana International Exchange (AIX) announced that the Nasdaq’s SMARTS Market Surveillance system for real-time surveillance and monitoring of market operations functions was deployed successfully.
The set of AIX’s SMARTS alerts and reports for surveillance allows AIX, to pro-actively detect abnormal trading patterns (including spoofing, layering, collusion, etc.), and to deter market abuse in all types of assets (equities and fixed income). The solution is also scalable and can easily expand to cover future asset classes as required.
“Implementation of the SMARTS surveillance system will ensure market integrity by detecting abnormal trading patterns and provide our clients with a fair, transparent and safe marketplace which is critical to attracting liquidity,” said Tim Bennett, CEO, AIX. “We are glad that through our partnership with a recognizable global supplier of technologies for exchanges we continue to build our global standard infrastructure.”
“By deploying SMARTS, AIX is underscoring their commitment in providing Kazakhstan and the Central Asia region with blue chip, best-in-class monitoring capabilities leveraged by regulators and exchanges worldwide,” said Andy Green, Associate Vice President, Market Technology, Nasdaq. “As Nur-Sultan continues to develop into a prominent capital markets hub, the need for integrity and keeping its markets safe from financial crime has never been more significant. We look forward to working with AIX in this important endeavor.”
As the industry benchmark for real-time and cross-market surveillance platforms, Nasdaq’s SMARTS surveillance technology automates the detection, investigation, and analysis of potentially abusive or disorderly trading, to help improve the overall efficiency of the surveillance organization and reduce cost, even as market complexity and new regulations increase. These solutions are used to power monitoring for more than 50 marketplaces, 18 regulators and 170+ market participants, including several buy-side institutions, across 65 countries.
Astana International Exchange was created in 2017 within the AIFC development framework. AIX shareholders are: AIFC, Goldman Sachs, Shanghai Stock Exchange, Silk Road Fund and NASDAQ which provides AIX trading platform. Exchange operates within the regulatory environment familiar to international investors, in the English law jurisdiction. The Exchange has developed and fully operational trading infrastructure. An ecosystem of local and international brokers has been created. AIX successfully held IPO of NAC “Kazatomprom” JSC in November 2018. Polymetal International plc, a large mining company, passed dual listing in April 2019. In addition, Eurobonds of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan and corporate bonds of “Kazakhstan Temir Zholy” JSC were placed on the AIX platform. The securities of “Shubarkol Komir” JSC and “TNC Kazchrome” JSC were added to the “pre-IPO” category. Two custodian banks are the members of the AIX Central Depository (AIX CSD), and over 60,000 investor accounts have been opened at AIX CSD. AIX is a member of the Federation of European and Asian Stock Exchanges. United Kingdom’s HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) granted AIX with ‘recognized stock exchange’ status in January 2019. AIX CSD is a member of the European Central Securities Depositories Association (ECSDA).
