How TDM Group and Arqaam Capital Built ArqNeT – the MENA Region’s Premier Electronic Trading Infrastructure
Arqaam Capital partnered with TDM Group to design and deliver ArqNeT – a best-in-class trading infrastructure that’s established the business as the number one destination for inbound electronic order flow across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
Company profile
Arqaam Capital is a specialist emerging markets and MENA financial services broker, regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) and headquartered in Dubai. Since receiving its DFSA authorisation in 2007, the business has built a strong reputation for combining deep regional expertise with institutional-grade execution. This foundation enables Arqaam Capital to provide a global client base with direct access to more than 50 exchanges across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and wider MENA region.
The Challenge
MENA’s financial markets have undergone a profound transformation, shifting from manual trading to electronic and algorithmic execution – driven by institutions demanding faster, smarter access to regional markets.
As algorithms began to dominate institutional order flow – with instructions originating in London and executed across exchanges in the MENA region – Arqaam Capital identified a critical gap: the absence of a dedicated connectivity hub in London to provide European investors and financial institutions unified, high-performance access to MENA markets. ven the largest global investment banks were accessing MENA markets through rudimentary, fragmented networks.
Key infrastructure challenges included:
Rapid and sustained increase in electronic order flow as algorithmic trading took hold across GCC and wider MENA exchanges.
High latency on cross-market trades between London and the MENA region, limiting trading performance.
Low resilience in existing connectivity, creating risk of downtime that could not be instantly resolved in time-critical trading environments.
No single point of presence in London through which institutional investors could access the full suite of MENA exchanges.
Arqaam Capital’s ambition was to build a best-in-class, purpose-built infrastructure that would make it the go-to conduit for MENA electronic trading.
Sumeet Akewar, Head of Electronic Trading at Arqaam Capital, explained their goals in the face of these challenges:
The majority of flow is now algo-driven, and to handle this we wanted to create an
environment that’s fast, sturdy and resilient.
The Solution
Arqaam Capital’s existing relationship with TDM Group made them the ideal technology partner to design, build and operate a proprietary trading infrastructure.
Central to TDM Group’s approach is its Managed Business IT Services (M-BiTS)
A holistic model that aligns technology strategy directly with business objectives. Rather than simply deploying infrastructure, TDM Group works as a true business partner to Arqaam Capital, ensuring every technology decision is grounded in what they’re trying to achieve.
The result of this business-focused partnership is ArqNeT
A centralised private network that securely and intelligently routes trade messages to MENA exchanges, delivering ultra-low latency and high resilience to institutional clients across Europe.
ArqNeT is a dedicated point of presence in London. For the first time, European investors and financial institutions gained a resilient, high-performance access point to the full range of GCC and MENA exchanges. This set the standard, eliminating fragmented, high-latency routes.
ArqNeT transformed trading performance across three key dimensions:
Significant Latency Reduction
Significant Latency Reduction algorithmic trades execute up to three times faster than was previously possible.
Enterprise-grade Resilience
downtime instances that were prevalent using unstable connections have been almost eradicated.
Commercially Sustainable
costs are firmly controlled in a domain where infrastructure projects frequently spiral.
Our partnership with TDM Group has played a key role in the successful delivery of the ArqNet trading infrastructure platform. Their deep technical knowledge, responsiveness, and understanding of our business requirements have helped us achieve a secure, scalable, and highly reliable trading environment. TDM Group continues to be a valued partner in supporting our ongoing growth and innovation.
Premsingh Patil, IT Operations Director at Arqaam Capital
Business Benefits
Number One for Electronic Order Flow
ArqNeT’s speed and efficiency have transformed Arqaam Capital into the leading destination for inbound electronic order flow across the GCC, routing 60–70% from London into the MENA region – positioning the business second overall in MENA trading volumes.
Trusted by the World’s Largest Institutions
ArqNeT’s reliability and performance has empowered Arqaam Capital to establish deep, lasting relationships with prestigious financial institutions that initially used them as a backup provider. On the strength of ArqNeT’s consistent performance, they have elevated Arqaam Capital to their primary MENA execution partner.
Sustained First-Mover Advantage
By foreseeing the shift to algorithmic trading in the GCC and partnering with TDM Group to build the infrastructure to support it, Arqaam Capital secured a head start over the competition. That advantage has been augmented by a commitment to continuous evolution by extending and upgrading ArqNeT.
Reputation Built on Uptime and Resilience
In a trading environment where every millisecond matters and downtime is measured in lost revenue and client trust, ArqNeT’s operational record has attracted the world’s leading financial institutions – and retained them.
Scalable Growth Without Spiralling Cost
TDM Group’s M-BiTS approach has empowered Arqaam Capital to scale its trading infrastructure across the MENA region, without the cost and complexity of building a large internal IT function. The fully managed service model provides predictable costs, specialist expertise on demand and the flexibility to scale.
TDM Group played a very important part by offering a solution which did the job and was cost-effective – understanding the business needs and making sure that the costs are controlled was one of their unique offerings.
Sumeet Akewar, Head of Electronic Trading at Arqaam Capital
Built for the Future
With satellite hubs across the GCC and MENA region and plans to expand, the platform has become the defining infrastructure for MENA electronic trading. The ecosystem has been designed and built to expand into new regions, and the business-focused partnership with TDM Group provides the strategic and operational platform to achieve that.