Opetek launches ARIUS AI reasoning platform for trading desks

Opetek has launched ARIUS, an AI quantitative-reasoning platform aimed at institutional front-office trading desks. The company is piloting the platform with a Tier 1 global investment bank on live FX options workflows across New York, London and Singapore, and is preparing a further deployment with another Tier 1 institution.

ARIUS applies automated quantitative reasoning to market questions and produces explainable, auditable and reproducible outputs. The platform connects market data, pricing models, analytics and news behind a natural-language interface so traders and quantitative analysts can generate analysis and code faster than through manual processes.

Teams at the pilot bank are using ARIUS to analyse scenarios, test pricing and support live trading decisions across FX options in the three trading hubs. The system records the calculations, assumptions, methodologies, code and market-data inputs that produce each output, creating a reviewable trail for audit and governance while leaving final decisions under human control.

Opetek developed ARIUS to address four sources of friction that it says limit front-office decision-making: fragmented workflows across market data, analytics, risk, research and communications systems; large volumes of market data that can overwhelm human processing; delays caused by manual coding and one-off analysis; and undocumented assumptions that make work hard to inspect and reproduce. The platform reasons across connected inputs to reduce time spent on data gathering, preparation and ad hoc coding.

The product is delivered as a standalone application that sits above an institution’s existing data, analytics and model layers, allowing deployment without replacing legacy trading infrastructure. ARIUS currently integrates with Refinitiv/LSEG market data and Opetek’s proprietary pricing and analytics.

FX options is the first asset-class application of Opetek’s capital-markets reasoning engine. The company plans to extend the same architecture to equities, fixed income, commodities, credit and digital assets.

Opetek was founded by Varqa Abyaneh, who previously served as chief product officer at Quantile and has held roles in derivatives trading, quantitative analysis and product development at banks including HSBC. The senior team includes Philip Beadling as chief technology officer and Henry Ip as machine learning lead.

Varqa Abyaneh, founder and chief executive, commented: “Deciding what to trade 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. ARIUS helps trading desks reason and decide faster while keeping the reasoning visible and under human control.”