The China Market-Access Playbook: From Requirements to Go-Live

Costa Victoros

Our objective

QTC set out to show, train and document the onboarding process for new quantitative trading teams: gathering each team’s requirements for market data, latency, technology and controls, and following the process through to go-live.

The challenge

The client had market access, broker relationships and operational capability. Its onboarding knowledge, however, sat in scattered documents. Every new quantitative team meant repeating the same technical discovery, and historical-data requirements were not captured in a comparable form. Rules on exchange colocation and programme trading were also evolving during the engagement.

What we did

QTC designed five repeatable workstreams:

• Technical requirements capture. A structured questionnaire covering hosting, connectivity, market data, risk systems and drop-copy.

• Broker due diligence. A broker register, with separate futures and securities questionnaire tracks, to help match each team to the right broker.

• Connectivity design. A standard model that keeps management traffic and market data on separate paths.

• Market-data architecture. A three-layer design for capturing, storing and delivering historical and live data to partners.

• Go-live readiness. A sign-off framework with pre-trade controls recorded as actual values, controlled order-workflow testing and defined rollback triggers.

We also assessed third-party technology vendors. Our approach treats latency claims as unproven until they are independently benchmarked.

What we learned

Broker-enforced limits and platform-level monitoring are not interchangeable. The first can reject an order, while the second can only observe and alert. Neither should be trusted alone.

Where things stand

The playbook is documented and in use. The first trading team has progressed to controlled, small-volume testing. Onboarding of further newly qualified teams has been sequenced to a later phase, in line with the client’s current priorities, and the framework is ready to be applied to each of them.

We make no claims about returns, latency or cost improvements, because we cannot yet evidence them. What the client has is a documented, reusable framework and a clear path from requirements to production.

Why it matters for you

If you are a broker, hedge fund or quantitative trading firm preparing to trade China, you will meet the same pressures: onshore access constraints, data complexity and shifting rules. Our work shows the value of testing assumptions early and recording controls as evidence, not intentions.

Request the full case study, or talk to QTC about a focused China readiness assessment.

Client and counterparty details are withheld by agreement. Outcomes are described only where QTC can evidence them. Full case studies are available on request.