French Firm to Upgrade Securities Markets’ Software

French IT company Atos SE has signed a memorandum of understanding with Iranian securities market authorities to upgrade trading software of Iranian exchanges.

Shapour Mohammadi, the head of Securities and Exchange Organization, said the software will be updated in six to eight months, Boursepress reported.

The shared trading platform between Tehran Stock Exchange and Iran Fara Bourse is being updated after eight years.

System breakdowns in peak trading hours are chronic, especially at initial public offerings.

The breakdowns have caused public outrage on social media. A group of investors even wrote a letter to Mohammadi regarding the breakdowns and regulations. Some even alleged collusion between regulators and brokerages to defraud small investors. Their protest fell on deaf ears and SEO issued no official response.

Regardless of what's going on among institutional investors, brokers and the exchanges, the software running Iranian capital markets needs update and the breakdowns are to end with Atos' help.

"The plan will start as of December 3 and its execution will take six months," said Morteza Analouyi, an SEO deputy head.

The markets' trading platform software was last updated in 2008, after eight years of running primitive software. However, sanctions stopped updates, as the French cut ties with Iran and troubles with the system increased.

Both the data center and trading software will get upgrades from Atos.

"The two sides reached an agreement about using Atos' new software and hardware," SENA reported without specifying what the agreement was.

Hassan Qalibaf-Asl and Amir Hamouni, the chief executives of Tehran Stock Exchange and Iran Fara Bourse, respectively attended the signing ceremony on Tuesday evening.

"The signing of this MoU is the start of cooperation between SEO and Atos," Qalibaf-Asl said.

Previously, IFB officials were in talks with South Korean suppliers of IT services, as French companies proved unreliable and refused to provide support after sanctions intensified.

"Using Korean suppliers will provide a measure of security for us," an IFB executive said on condition of anonymity.

Atos SE is a European IT services corporation providing consulting and managed services and systems integration, hi-tech transactional services, unified communications, cloud, big data and cyber security services.

The company faced a government review of all of its major contracts, which amounted to more than £500 million, in the United Kingdom in March following serious IT failures.