Data Standards for Order Life Cycles

These Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) are intended to provide additional guidance on the expectations set forth in the Technical Specifications for the Data Standards and help In-Scope Brokers ensure compliance.

Important Notes

These FAQs should be read together with the Technical Specifications, specifically, for definitions of the terms used. They will be updated to provide additional guidance as needed.

Questions may be directed to sfcdatastandards_isd@sfc.hk.

Scope

Q1 : If orders are placed directly through the trading terminal provided by SEHK, namely ET Trade Speed Station or ETTSS, instead of an In-Scope Broker’s trading systems, are these orders required to be reported?

A: Yes, In-Scope Brokers should report the orders on all In-Scope Products, irrespective of how they are sent to the “Execution Venues”.

The Data Standards Event Methodology

Q2 : How should conditional orders, such as stop loss orders, be reported?

An “Order New” (ONEW) event should be reported when a conditional order is placed by the client and acknowledged by the In-Scope Broker.

A “Split New” (SNEW) event should also be reported once the condition, such as the stop-loss price, is met to trigger the sending of the order to the “Execution Venues”.

In addition, In-Scope Brokers are encouraged to specify details of the order condition in the “freeText” field, if available.

Q3 : Can an In-Scope Broker indicate the order type for a “Split New” (SNEW) event as “MKT” (ie, market order) with no limit price for orders sent to SEHK?

It depends on the type of order sent to SEHK. Other than “At-auction Orders”¹ , the order type for a SNEW event for orders sent to SEHK for execution should be reported as “LMT” (ie, limit order) with the corresponding limit price reported under the “orderPrice” field.

For “At-auction Orders” sent to SEHK, In-Scope Brokers may report the order type of the SNEW event for these orders as “MKT” with a “zero” value in the “orderPrice” field.

Others

Q4 : Can different client identification numbers (ie, “clientIDs”) be used to identify the same client?

A: No, a unique client identification number must be used to identify each client. For the avoidance of doubt, where an In-Scope Broker has different proprietary trading desks, the names of these desks can be used as “clientID” but the “clientID” for each proprietary trading desk should be unique.

Q5 : How do In-Scope Brokers report the “accountID” if this is not assigned to an order?

If an “accountID” is not assigned to an agency order, In-Scope Brokers can report the “clientID” as the “accountID”.

For principal orders, In-Scope Brokers can report the “tradebookID” as the “accountID” if the orders are booked under a trading book and assigned with a “tradebookID”.

Q6 : How do In-Scope Brokers report the “tradebookID” if this is not assigned to an order?

For agency orders which are not booked under any trading book and an “accountID” is not available, In-Scope Brokers can report the “clientID” as the “tradebookID”.

For principal orders, In-Scope Brokers can report the “accountID” as the “tradebookID” if the “accountID” is the code of the trading book under which the position of the principal orders is booked. For In-Scope Brokers that have different principal trading desks and use the reference numbers of these desks as “clientID” without any “tradebook ID” or “accountID”, the In-Scope Brokers can report the “clientID” as the “tradebookID” and “accountID”.

¹ “At-auction Order” is an order with no specified price which is sent to SEHK for execution at the final indicative equilibrium price.

Last update: 22 Dec 2022