RFQ Flow Migration to FIXEdge Java

For over 25 years, this US-based company has served as a Liquidity Provider and Market Maker. Makes thousands of live and executable markets of fixed-income (corporate, municipal bonds), equities and structured securities products.​ With access to wide-reaching electronic distribution channels.​  It employs in-house traders to manage trading positions and ensure liquidity, and it also provides a platform that facilitates access for external traders from diverse firms, institutions, and individual investors.

The goal was to substitute the client's current municipal and corporate bonds RFQ system with the EPAM| B2BITS FIXEdge Java based solution. The strategy involved setting up a unique connection for each venue, which would transform FIX messages into a standardized Avro format and transmit them to the Confluent Cloud (Message Broker).

The key solution requirements were:

• Ensuring there is no loss of RFQ states during system restarts.
• Implementing a simplified, comprehensive RFQ state model.
• Establishing a single pipeline for processing all messages

EPAM Systems | B2BITS, Capital Markets Competency Center, and its experienced team with extensive financial domain expertise, was chosen as the trusted partner to implement the solution

Solution

The current FIXEdge Java solution was customized to convert FIX to Avro across various RFQ gateways, utilizing message serializer and venue-specific processors (custom Java beans). This solution was seamlessly integrated with Confluent Cloud (Message Broker) via Kafka TA to facilitate message transmission in Avro. Additionally, Groovy scripts in the business layer were developed for message routing and alert notifications. 

Workflow example 1. RFQ

Workflow example 2. Streaming Quotes

The FIXEdge Java solution delivers a reliable and easily adjustable FIX HUB, designed to adeptly handle RFQ flows. Serving as a central hub, it offers benefits such as cost efficiency, transparency, simplified vendor selection, and time savings. Utilizing EPAM's FIXEdge Java solution, the company is well-positioned to lead in technological innovations and gain significant value from their investment.