For years, small and start-up exchanges—particularly those in emerging markets—have relied on large, off-the-shelf trading platforms to get up and running. These systems promise speed to market and a full set of standard features, often geared toward equities trading. But a growing number of newer or more specialised venues are re-evaluating that route.
Whether launching a new market in Africa, digitising commodities trading in Latin America, or building a regional platform in Asia, these exchanges are finding that generic technology often can’t support their unique ambitions.
Not All Markets Are Built the Same
Exchanges in earlier stages of development often need more than just a traditional matching engine or FIX gateway. They may require hybrid workflows, tailored onboarding processes, and integration with local clearinghouses or registries that don’t yet operate like a full central securities depository (CSD).
In some cases, settlements may still be partly paper-based, or dependent on registries that act like quasi-CSDs but lack real-time delivery-versus-payment (DvP) functionality. Others need a platform that can handle corporate actions such as dividends and rights issues, assign ISINs to new securities, or support T+1 settlement cycles while leaving room for deferred settlement.
The problem? Large platform vendors tend to prioritise their biggest clients. For smaller exchanges, this often means long delays for changes, limited flexibility, and the frustration of submitting tickets into support systems that feel more like waiting rooms. And too often, these venues are weighed down further by outdated legacy systems—systems prone to outages, slow upgrades, and reputational risks when things go wrong.
Why the Shift?
The new wave of smaller and start-up exchanges are looking for more than just software. They’re looking for a partner who will understand their market, move at their pace, and help shape the platform around their needs—not the other way around.
Exchanges increasingly recognise that technology is not just an operational tool, but, if done right, an engine for growth. It’s the foundation on which new participants are attracted, new products launched, and international credibility built. For many smaller venues, the strategic priority isn’t simply to offer more services to existing members, but to bring in new participants and expand the overall market.
At the same time, these exchanges often lack large in-house IT teams, so managing heavy, complex platforms just isn’t realistic. They need systems that can scale fast as participation grows, integrate easily with brokers’ order management systems (OMS) for direct market access (DMA), and maintain a robust audit trail for regulators. In some venues, investor numbers are expected to double or even triple within just a few years. That kind of growth, even from a low base, makes it vital to have systems that also can, for example, pre-validate securities and cash balances in real time, enforce configurable risk limits, and provide easy-to-use, branded user portals for checking trades and positions.
That’s why many are now turning to modular, cloud-hosted solutions that bring together trading and depository functions in a single stack. With this model, the core components—order management, matching, market data, settlement processing—are proven and reliable. But the workflows, interfaces, risk controls, and even product types can be adapted to fit local conditions. Good APIs also play a key role here, giving exchanges the ability to integrate new services quickly, connect with third-party systems, and evolve their market infrastructure over time.
A Strategic Bet That Pays Off
The technology stack isn’t simply an operational necessity for a growing exchange—it’s part of the brand. The ability to offer unique contract types, cater to regional trading behaviours, or respond quickly to regulatory demands can define an exchange’s competitive position. Those aren’t things you can configure via a drop-down menu.
Going down a bespoke or semi-bespoke route doesn’t mean reinventing the wheel, however. It means having the right modules—such as central limit order books, pre-trade risk controls, or settlement engines—wired together in the right way and new code written where it matters most. It’s about owning your roadmap without shouldering the costly burden of building everything from scratch.
At Sinara, this is the model we’ve adopted. We build robust, modular systems based on our SinaraTLC framework and develop the parts that make each exchange unique. That could mean, for example, custom settlement processes, integration with warehouses, or enabling negotiated trades and periodic auctions alongside continuous trading. It’s faster, it’s lighter, and it gives our clients confidence that their priorities won’t get lost in somebody else’s queue.
For start-up and smaller exchanges with big ambitions, it just might be the smarter choice.
