The 2017 Trading Tech 40: Alasdair Haynes

Peter Vasiliev

March 07, 2017

< Wall Street's Nerds: The World's Most Powerful Trading Executives

22. Alasdair Haynes

Chief Executive Officer

Aquis Exchange

Last year: 25

For Aquis Exchange, launched in 2013 as a pan-European challenger to leading incumbents such as Bats Global Markets and London Stock Exchange Group, 2016 was a "transformational year," says CEO Alasdair Haynes. London-based Aquis, which had differentiated itself from the start with subscription pricing, in February 2016 imposed a rule prohibiting "aggressive, non-client proprietary trading." That contributed to a surge in the exchange's average daily value — 79 percent year-over-year in October — with market shares in some top stocks exceeding 6 percent.

"It takes three to four years to get these businesses going," says Haynes, 57, who was CEO of Chi-X Europe before Bats acquired it in 2011. He has formed a separate division for Aquis Technologies. Its turnkey exchange system has been bought by the A2X market in South Africa, and Haynes says that its real-time trade and order surveillance system is meeting healthy demand from organizations coping with the European Market Abuse Regulation and MiFID (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive) II.

The 2017 Trading Tech 40