Opetek, a London-based developer of trusted AI systems for capital markets, has launched ARIUS, a proprietary quantitative reasoning platform aimed at institutional front-office trading desks.
The platform is built to work through demanding market problems rapidly, delivering outputs that are explainable, auditable and reproducible so that desks can reach well-grounded decisions more quickly. A Tier 1 global investment bank is already trialling ARIUS in live FX options workflows spanning New York, London and Singapore, where traders and quants are applying it to dissect complicated market questions, run scenarios and inform live trading calls. A second deployment with another Tier 1 institution is also in preparation.
According to Opetek, four sources of friction currently hold back desk decision-making. Context is lost because workflows are scattered across market data, analytics, risk, research and communications systems; the sheer volume of market information exceeds what any individual can absorb; insights arrive slowly because analysis is bespoke and manually coded; and assumptions often go unrecorded, making decisions hard to inspect, replicate or monitor.
ARIUS targets each of these problems. It reasons across pricing models, analytics, news and market data, linking information that would otherwise remain siloed. A natural-language interface lets users produce tailored analysis and code quickly, cutting the time spent assembling inputs and building one-off studies.
Every output can be interrogated, with the underlying calculations, assumptions, methodologies, code and data inputs forming a reviewable reasoning trail that supports governance requirements while keeping humans in control.
Delivered as a standalone application, ARIUS sits on top of a firm’s existing data, analytics and model layers, meaning institutions can adopt advanced reasoning without ripping out current trading infrastructure. It presently connects to Refinitiv/LSEG market data alongside Opetek’s own pricing and analytics.
FX options is the first asset class covered, with plans to extend the architecture to equities, fixed income, commodities, credit and digital assets.
Opetek founder and CEO Varqa Abyaneh said, “One of the most fundamental challenges in financial markets is deciding what to trade. Reaching that decision requires quantitative analysis and qualitative judgement across market data, pricing models, analytics and news, often under severe time pressure. Because these are high-value decisions, speed alone is not enough. Trading desks need reasoning that is explainable, auditable, and reproducible.
“We built ARIUS around that complexity. ARIUS helps trading desks reason better and decide faster, while keeping the reasoning visible and under human control.”
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