Annual Report 2012 - Lahore Stock Exchange

Technology Services DivisionAssets of LSE Technology ServicesDivisionTSD continued to invest in its assets detailed belowprimarily improving the Exchange trading platform,ULTRA Trade, and its BackOffice products based onrequirements of the brokers as well as to keep theproducts and services compliant with the SECPprescribed regulatory enhancements.Intellectual PropertyLSE has been granted 8 different copyrights to its varioustechnology products including ULTRA Trading System,BrokerNet and Smart Stock Services to name a few. TheSoftware Development department within theTechnology Services division has been tasked withupgrading all our software systems and incorporating thelatest protocols, security standards, graphical userinterface libraries and social networking elements todifferentiate these products and turn them intomarketable assets. A Business Development Departmentshall be created to actively market and sell these softwaresystems to exchanges, brokers and investors around theglobe and generate revenue for the exchange.Portfolio of ServicesSome of the key services that the Technology ServicesDivision is offering to the Exchange and its customersinclude: ULTRA Trade – a world-class, high-speed tradingplatform UTS Platform – an integrated market platform forIslamabad Stock Exchange Local and remote desktop based trading & view-onlyterminals BrokerNet platform for extending online tradingservices to brokers' investors Smart Stock System – a platform for managing theBrokers' back office operations Lahore Stock Services – a comprehensive tradereporting platform CHS – a comprehensive clearing and settlementreporting platform LSE corporate website containing a wealth of marketrelated informationInfrastructureLSE has made significant capital investments indeveloping the operating and networking infrastructureof the exchange and plans on making additional capitalinvestments in order to upgrade the internal data centerand build a disaster recovery site. The past investments inthe infrastructure have generally not been accompaniedwith a strategy to recuperate the expense through somemonetization mechanism.The planned IT infrastructure upgrade like thedevelopment of a tier-2 or tier-3 datacenter within theLSE premises incorporates a monetization strategy ofoffering the excess capacity as co-location and hostingfacilities to third parties including banks in the buildingand/or brokers wanting a more reliable and secureenvironment for their systems. This upgrade could not beaccomplished in FY 2011-12 due to budgetaryconstraints, but is planned for in the FY 2012-13 timeframe.Human ResourcesSkilled human resources are the backbone of anytechnology operation and LSE Technology Servicesdivision is no exception. The primary skills employed bythe division are C++, Oracle Developer, CiscoNetworking, .NET and IT security. Some of these skills likeC++ development are not easily available in the marketbut are a prerequisite for the development of a platformthat needs to support the highest throughput andperformance requirements. Additionally, the divisionrequires a certain minimal level of domain expertise inthe capital markets before a resource can be productive.That also is hard to come by and the division often endsup spending on training any new hires throughorientation sessions in different exchange departmentsand with brokers.The afore mentioned factors coupled with the fact thatLSE competes with a very thriving IT industry in generalnecessitates that we invest in and value our HR andensure long term loyalty by providing the staff with anopportunity to grow professionally and compensatingthem at least at par with the rest of the industry.In order to maximize the return on this investment, it iscritical that the staff is not just supporting the existingsoftware but is creating new and marketable softwaresolutions for the global capital markets ecosystem. Thevarious IT initiatives outlined in the remainder of thissection provide a high level overview of such projectswhich are expected to generate sales and bring in revenueto the division and the exchange. In order to continue toANNUAL REPORT 2011-12 65