When the pre-requisites and specifications for digital transformation are too daunting for a small trading firm, the least-painful pathway is obvious…
How can a financial technology company operating in the fast-paced world of foreign exchange (FX) trading overcome the relentless challenges of high data volumes, ultra-low latency demands, strict regulatory requirements, and the need for 24×6 operational resilience?
For many, these obstacles can stall innovation and growth, especially as markets expand and compliance pressures mount. One firm that has successfully navigated these hurdles is Spark Systems, a Singapore-based fintech firm specializing in next-generation foreign-exchange (FX) trading platforms for established banks across the Asia Pacific region and beyond.
Facing mounting complexity as they scaled their operations and entered new markets, the firm’s Chief Operating Officer, Chaitanya Peddada, needed to modernize its technology infrastructure to maintain its competitive edge. Here is his organization’s case study, expressed in a quick interview with DigiconAsia.net
DigiconAsia: What were the core business and technology challenges faced by your organization, and what compelled you to revamp your IT infrastructure?
Chaitanya Peddada (CP): Back in 2022, we had started our first experiment with a new infrastructure solution in our data center in London. With the constantly evolving industry, we did not have price clarity with the other vendors in the market.
In leveraging digitalization, we found a solution that gave us clarity on price. We evaluated all parameters, including core process optimization (CPO), input/output (I/O) performance, and system recovery capabilities, because recovery is critical for our industry where most FX trading platforms use virtualization solutions (VMs). Our industry is memory-intensive due to the huge amount of data generated. Therefore, for investments on hardware, we have to ensure that the returns on investment (ROI) would be high.
Another aspect for trading platforms is latency. Our chosen solution had to meet or exceed this and all other parameters at a competitive pricing arrangement.
DigiconAsia: Migrating critical infrastructure in a 24×6 trading environment can be challenging. What were the key success factors in ensuring business continuity?
CP: Unlike other trading markets, which start in the morning and end in the late evening, our markets work 24×6. Migrating from one solution to another is a big challenge. We have time limitations —typically 1.5 days on every weekend. While migrating, we need to plan everything in advance and we used a migration tool for the process.
The migration process was planned over six weekends, with no downtime on the new cluster. What we like about the migration experience for this major revamp was that it was incident-free. I had been in the industry for more than 15 years and for the first time, we had gone without any incidents.
DigiconAsia: Post-migration, what tangible business benefits and operational improvements have you observed and documented as ROI?
CP: One key aspect was the need for additional human resources to facilitate the migration. The cost of hiring suitable IT talent in Singapore is high. With the solution we chose, there was no need for hiring additional talents as the current team themselves can get hands-on with it.
In course of time, we also realized we need not stick with the traditional three tier model: the recovery of VMs was seamless. We tested the process in hard conditions before migrating fully. Some of the other aspects where this solution had an edge were the ease of use and storage option flexibility. As a FX trading platform, we have a lot of market data as well as customer data. From traditionally storing the data, we are also on the verge of providing predictive data insights to customers.
DigiconAsia: Which technology principles or approaches were most important in enabling your digital transformation?
CP: Execution management systems is a specialized part in our trading sector. Traditionally, enterprises in our segment would stick to the same hardware stack, always without changing much. As it is tried and tested, companies generally do not want to change. Any changes in downtime or latency will have huge impacts that would eventually end up in losing some customers for good.
Apart from that, the principle of easy scalability is mandatory, which is very important from a small firm’s point of view. Yet, the scalability must not involve investing big on new racks or new storage hardware.
DigiconAsia: Looking ahead, how do you see your digital infrastructure supporting Spark Systems’ future strategy and expansion?
CP: All the players in the FX space are heavily regulated. Every country has different regulatory body and we. Traditionally, the approach for the trading systems had always been “on-premises”. However, things are transforming. We have now permissions to move a few aspects to the Cloud, including mobile apps, the front end of our web portal, TCA tools, etc., even though the critical data of the customer must remain outside of cloud storage.
The solution we adopted from Nutanix, offers a hyperconverged infrastructure that takes care of such data sovereignty requirements. Further, what stood out was the clarity in pricing, the seamless migration experience, and their unique marketplace ecosystem that we could leverage for further innovation. Overall, their solutions approach has enabled us to modernize our infrastructure with minimal disruption and maximum flexibility.
Similarly, smaller financial firms can also benefit from this scalable, high-performance model without major upfront hardware investments.
Furthermore, the centralized platform marketplace provides additional value, making it an attractive option for financial sector infrastructure teams.
