Quant-Box, the Japanese FinTech, announces the launch of its platform that aims to improve Asian investors’ access to the Japanese stock market
Launched in July 2022, Quant-Box will become one of the first broker-neutral platforms to offer professionals and individuals the same level of institutional-level real-time market data experience as those enjoyed by much larger buy-side firms. Partnerships with family offices and retail brokers are also on the list to expand their reach with Japanese real-time market data, Transaction Cost Analysis (TCA), and trading analytics.
At a time of upheaval, observers have noticed that Tokyo is a serious contender for Asia’s next financial center, despite the fact that historically Japan has found it challenging to spark excitement burdened by decades of low interest rates and an aging population. Japanese markets have thus struggled to keep up with international counterparts, especially in the area of Unicorns and FinTech.
“We believe the biggest city in the world’s third-largest economy is on the radar of serious investors. With that, it becomes important to be able to make it easy as possible to offer access and a service that can be utilized by as many groups as possible to meet differing use cases,” said Serdar Armutcu, Chief Executive Officer of Quant-Box.
The platform can be used by anyone who needs streaming real-time market information that until now had only been enjoyed by finance industry professionals at large banks.
“Quant-Box’s user interface has been developed specifically for interacting with real-time share market data. Customized for the local Japanese market and market microstructure, with Quant-Box’s unique market depth tools, you can instantly analyze a stock’s open order book and identify trends early. Quant-Box’s charting tools feature a comprehensive selection of indicators including some custom-designed ones which help identify intra-day price movements,” adds Serdar Armutcu.
Quant-Box also offers an opportunity for mid-to-late career professionals who hold positions in the finance sector to brush up on the data and analytics skills using a proprietary Python-like language designed for finance professionals. The platform can be used by education institutions focused on data analysis in relation to data storytelling. A lot of 40-plus finance professionals stopped at basic Microsoft Excel, whereas in today’s finance world the need to become familiar with various AI and machine learning techniques is vital.
“We are pleased to offer our professional clients and small to medium-sized firms an opportunity to enjoy the same level of analytics tools enjoyed by their peers in larger banks, hedge funds, and prop firms. We recognize the growing demand from Asian investors to trade Japan-listed equities and futures and we have worked hard over the past couple of years to make it easier to do so,” Armuctu shares.
Japan Exchange Group (JPX) has made serious strides to make the Japanese stock market more attractive for companies to list and raise capital. One has to go back only a couple of years to notice the trend, from reducing settlement from T+3 to T+2 to bring it in line with other markets, allowing retail margin trading in PTS for the first time, encouraging PTS and Derivative Dark Pools, and ETF market making schemes. This also includes the latest overhaul of the Tokyo Stock Exchange market divisions to better reflect and incentivize companies’ growth ambitions. All this bodes well for the future prospects of the Tokyo market.