RTS Eyes Broader Base for Russian Data

Under the new policy, retail investors will receive real-time access to all RTS data via any display, including active trader terminals, data portals and mobile devices for a $5 monthly fee-though some vendors may add their own surcharges in addition to the exchange license fee-compared to RTS' $70 monthly per-user charge. The data covers the exchange's equities, indexes, derivatives and OTC-traded contracts, for which users previously had to pay the full $70 fee, regardless of whether they were a professional trader or retail investor.

Retail users within Russia are also given the choice of subscribing separately to individual subsets of RTS data-broken out by equities, derivatives and OTC markets-each for a $2 monthly fee, but can still subscribe to all three segments for the same $5 fee offered to international customers.

So far, Interactive Data, Denver, Colo.-based data and charting vendor CQG, mobile data provider Blue Systems and Dubai-based DirectFN have signed agreements with the exchange to provide RTS data to the retail market, though the exchange expects more to follow shortly. "There is huge demand from private investors interested in the Russian market after our rapid growth last year when Russia was the fastest growing market in the world... [so] many brokers are looking forward to being able to provide their clients with real-time Russian data at a substantially reduced price," says Denis Avetisyan, head of market data at RTS.

In a further effort to expand the user base for its data, RTS last month began providing Bloomberg with access to its FIX FAST datafeed, which uses the industry standard FIX Protocol and FAST (FIX Adapted for Streaming) compression to transmit more data using less bandwidth.

Whereas RTS' legacy vendor feed only provides best-bid-and-offer quotes, the FIX FAST feed provides five levels of market depth-which the exchange plans to increase further in the future, Avetisyan says-as well as volatility data for securities underlying each derivatives contract on RTS. In addition, any new data and analytics introduced by RTS in the future will only be distributed via the FIX FAST feed, Avetisyan adds.

The migration is part of an effort by Bloomberg to increase the breadth and depth of its Russian market data in a broader initiative to bolster its emerging markets content. This includes a deal announced last week to provide free access to Russian-language newswires from Moscow-based news agency Interfax for all Bloomberg terminal users in Russia and other Commonwealth of Independent States countries, as well as the launch of real-time yield curve analytics on Chinese government bonds in March.

Jean-Paul Carbonnier