3 April 2023

Aquis launches the world's first regulated market grade 24x7 exchange

("Aquis", the "Company" or the "Group")

Aquis Technologies, a division of Aquis Exchange PLC - the creator and facilitator of next-generation financial markets, is pleased to announce the launch of Aquis Equinox: a world-first, regulated market-grade 24x7 matching engine which never requires shut down or downtime.

In traditional exchange models, along with alternative finance exchange models, exchanges typically require downtime at set periods to ensure required actions such as sequence number resets, maintenance and software upgrades are implemented.

Now, exchanges running on Aquis Equinox can guarantee continuous operation, with no need for shutdown for software upgrades, infrastructure changes, capacity increases, reference data management or member onboarding.

Aquis Equinox combines this uninterrupted availability with the highest regulatory standards, alongside extreme fault tolerance and proprietary engineering. This ensures that the system can handle any kind of errors gracefully and automatically switch to a backup service (known as automated failover) in real time.  This also means that instances where distributed computer systems are unable to identify the primary system components without human intervention (known as split-brain distributed computing issues) do not occur.

Run through a shared ecosystem capable of hosting multiple exchanges under a single matching engine, Aquis Equinox delivers commercial efficiencies to both existing and start-up exchanges, and substantially reduces the costs of in-house development and staffing. Cloud-native deployment can eliminate costs associated with traditional data centres, decrease disaster recovery environment size, reduce environment duplication, carbon emissions and energy consumption, and improve speed to market.

The product was developed in-house by the Group's Aquis Technologies team, and is enabled by significant investment into its technology stack. Aquis Equinox has undergone rigorous testing and is now available as a cloud-native, hybrid or on-premise solution for customers.

Adrian Ip, Managing Director, Aquis Technologies, said:

"With the ability to run an exchange system without the need for shut-down, our ambition to offer "exchanges as a service" has now become a reality.

In the past, exchange technology providers have always been limited by the fact that different exchanges have different time zones and therefore varying hours of operation. What was traditionally a once per day shutdown to maintain the exchange now becomes redundant through Aquis Equinox.  

Moreover, through a shared ecosystem in which downtime is not a requirement, Aquis' matching engine enables the economies of scale to be shared across exchange platforms, delivering significant benefits to customers.

For too long, the traditional exchange technology provision industry has exported its entire business model to the world. Expensive software licenses, data centres, people and energy consumption. Stopping other industries which could benefit from regulated market grade technology. Aquis Equinox unlocks the potential of the next generation of capital markets for the world."

Aquis is well-recognised for unmatched performance in exchange services, with the Aquis Matching Engine offering the industry's lowest latency. In addition, Aquis has been a true pioneer and market leader in full cloud-based exchange deployments since developing a cloud-native financial exchange alongside SGX and AWS in 2020.

Further information on Aquis Equinox can be found at: www.aquis.eu/technologies/equinox.

Notes to editors:

About Aquis Exchange PLC

Aquis Exchange PLC ("Aquis") is a creator and facilitator of next-generation financial markets, through the provision of accessible, simple and efficient stock exchanges, trading venues and technology.

Aquis consists of three divisions: Aquis Markets, a subscription-based exchange offering pan-European cash equities trading; Aquis Technologies, which develops and licenses next-generation exchange technology globally; and Aquis Stock Exchange, a growth and regulated primary exchange delivering capital to companies via the listing and trading of shares.

Aquis Markets operates lit and dark order books, covering 16 European markets. For its lit books, Aquis uses a subscription pricing model which works by charging users according to the message traffic they generate, rather than a percentage of the value of each stock that they trade and does not allow aggressive non-client proprietary trading, which has resulted in lower market impact and signalling risk on Aquis than other trading venues in Europe.

Aquis Technologies is the software and technology division of Aquis. It focuses on building better markets via the creation and licensing of cutting-edge, cost-effective exchange infrastructure technology and services, including matching engine and trade surveillance solutions.

Aquis Stock Exchange (AQSE) is a stock market providing primary and secondary markets for equity and debt products. It is authorised as a Recognised Investment Exchange, which allows it to operate a regulated listings venue. The AQSE Growth Market is divided into two segments 'Access' and 'Apex', with different levels of admission criteria. The Access market focuses on earlier stage growth companies, while Apex is the intended market for larger, more established businesses.

Aquis is authorised and regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority and France's Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution and Autorité des Marchés Financiers to operate Multilateral Trading Facility businesses in the UK & Switzerland markets and in EU27 markets respectively. Aquis Exchange PLC is quoted on the Aquis Stock Exchange and on the Alternative Investment Market of the LSE (AIM) market. For more information, please go to www.aquis.eu.