At the steering wheel of the cash markets

It is the 23 employees on the 15th floor of the Deutsche Börse headquarters who functionally accompany the opening and closing of trading every day – or, in the case of volatile markets, ensure orderly trading in coordination with management and numerous other interfaces. They ensure that the financial instrument data in the trading systems are consistent. And they suspend trading in individual securities when important news might have a significant impact on the prices of these securities. 

These employees also assist market participants with their functional questions regarding trading systems, market models or individual instruments. “In everything we do, we want to ensure one thing: industry-leading operation of our cash markets. This means executing processes securely, in compliance with regulations and efficiently. The trust that our stakeholders place in us motivates us every day to maintain our high level of performance,” explains Miryusup Abdullaev, who has been heading the section since 2017.

Clear answers to a complex world

The word “process” is often mentioned in conversations with employees in Operations. Barbara Pürzer, head of the Börse Frankfurt & Publicity unit, confirms: “Our work involves going through processes accurately. But due to the complex nature of these processes, we still don't know whether they will run the same way today as they did yesterday. We have to react again and again to sudden deviations. That's what makes the work so exciting.” Barbara Pürzer surely knows, because with 19 years of market operations behind her, she is one of the senior members of the team. 

A tool for integrated process management shows just how innovative the team is – and it works easier than it sounds: simply explain how the process works (“First this happens, then that happens...”) and then the tool uses this as the basis for creating process documentation, models and checklists – in an audit-proof manner! “So far, we have not found a process that we have been unable to model with this tool”, says Moritz Christian Weber, Head of Unit Xetra. For this, there was even a special prize in the 2019 cash market internal innovation competition.

The team works in several shifts from 7:00 to 22:45. “For implementing projects, we allocate colleagues on an hourly or daily basis and redistribute capacities accordingly,” Barbara Pürzer explains. This has become necessary more often in recent years: first the migration of Xetra to T7, and since last year the migration of Börse Frankfurt to T7 has taken up a lot of time. The switch will take place on 9 March, i.e. in a few weeks. “Then we have to ensure continuous operations. Because the expectation regarding how the stock exchange should run is clear: it should always work,” says Moritz Christian Weber.