The Warsaw Stock Exchange (GPW) is working on a Project of building its own electronic trading platform, GPW WATS.
The aim of the project is to build transaction system, modern, modular, flexible and competitive in terms of operating costs, price and technology used, implementation on the WSE and then its commercialization.
The result of the Project is a solution that meets the needs of the market and the implemented Polish Capital Market Development Strategy, enabling the optimization of IT costs related to such a system and other costs indirectly related to trading on the secondary and primary markets, and will ensure the modernization of the technology used.
The lowest latency among systems available on the market: 10 microseconds with a load of 100,000 orders per second for 90% of processed orders, i.e. the average order processing delay for a specific input load to the system equal to 100,000 orders. per second, with a simultaneous small deviation in the system's response time to the order (jitter)
High capacity parameters: [1.5 billion operations/session]
Dear Sirs,
The Warsaw Stock Exchange has decided to postpone the production roll-out of the GPW WATS trading system. This decision was made following a review of the results of tests and the dress rehearsal conducted on 4 October 2025. The new roll-out schedule will be determined in consultation with market participants.
We would also like to inform you that, due to the above, the Dress Rehearsal scheduled for 25 October 2025 has been canceled.
The Warsaw Stock Exchange has decided to postpone the production roll-out of the GPW WATS trading system. The decision has been taken following a review of the results of tests and a dress rehearsal conducted on 4 October 2025. The new roll-out schedule will be set in consultation with market participants.
The dress rehearsal was the first mandatory test for all Exchange Members. It covered migration from the UTP system to GPW WATS and a test of the business continuity plan, including a contingency scenario with recovery of trading in the backup data centre. The dress rehearsal and preceding tests identified areas for improvement, in particular trading session surveillance, contingency response, system parameterisation, and the need for additional functional and performance tests.
“This is a responsible decision which follows an analysis of test results and readiness indicators on the part of the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Delaying the roll-out of the system will allow us to ensure its superior performance and functionality and accommodate the additional change requests submitted by Exchange Members,” said Sławomir Panasiuk, Vice-President of the Management Board of the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
The schedule of further work on the roll-out of GPW WATS will be defined jointly with the Implementation Committee comprised of representatives of Exchange Members and cooperating institutions. The new roll-out schedule will be published in the coming weeks. Until the switchover, UTP remains a stable trading system. GPW maintains its existing business continuity planning (BCP) procedures.
The GPW WATS project has run since July 2019 as a research and development project co-financed by the National Centre for Research and Development (NCBiR). The trading system GPW WATS developed in the project in August 2024 (according to the opinion of an independent auditor, a global technology consulting firm) delivered approximately 80% of the functional requirements after five years of work, without any integration work having been started.
Over the past twelve months, in addition to completing the development of the system to meet all functional requirements, intensive work has been carried out to adapt and integrate several systems on GPW side which, together with the trading system, form the architecture necessary to support trading and distribute market data. Work has been carried out in parallel to eliminate the technical debt, which required significant investments in infrastructure and a new data processing centre.
The objective of the GPW WATS project remains unchanged: to provide a reliable and scalable platform tailored to the expectations of market participants, supporting the long-term development of GPW’s offering.
Please be informed that GPW WATS documentation version 1.5 has been made available on the website www.gpwwats.pl in the tab: https://gpwwats.pl/useful-documents-and-faqs Diff documents showing content changes between the recently released version 1.5 and version 1.3 has been released.
The Management Board of the Warsaw Stock Exchange has set the scheduled date for the production roll-out of GPW’s new trading system WATS at 10 November 2025. The decision is based on the recommendation of the GPW WATS Implementation Committee which is overseeing the preparations.
GPW’s new trading system WATS (Warsaw Automated Trading System) will bring multiple technological and operational benefits to the entire GPW Group. The GPW Management Board has accepted the recommendation of the GPW WATS Implementation Committee, comprised of representatives of exchange members, KDPW/KDPW_CCP and GPW and responsible for overseeing and coordinating all aspects of the system’s implementation.
“The implementation of GPW’s new trading system WATS is a key step in the further development of the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Setting the roll-out date has been necessary to schedule preparatory and implementing activities on the part of GPW and other stakeholders. A specific date was expected by some market participants in order to optimally plan the necessary adaptation and preparation work,” said Sławomir Panasiuk, Vice-President of the GPW Management Board.
The implementation timetable for all stakeholders, adjusted to the roll-out date, will be regularly monitored by the GPW WATS Implementation Committee as well as the GPW Management Board and Supervisory Board.
GPW’s new proprietary trading system WATS is an innovative solution that will significantly improve the quality and efficiency of exchange operations by offering advanced functionalities and enhancing the security and reliability of trading. Based on state-of-the-art technology, the system is a key element of the GPW Group’s competitive advantage, enabling its further development and digital transition.
More information on the GPW WATS and the implementation timetable is available on the website GPW WATS.
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The Warsaw Stock Exchange Group (GPW Group) operates trading platforms for shares, Treasury and corporate bonds, derivatives, electricity and gas, and provides indices and benchmarks including WIBOR and WIBID. The index agent FTSE Russell classifies the Polish capital market as a Developed Market since 2018. The markets operated by the GPW Group are the biggest in Central and Eastern Europe. For more information, visit www.gpw.pl
PRESS RELEASE
GPW WATS is a solution based on state-of-the-art technology. It relies on the RUST programming language which ensures speed, stability and security. It is used in key components by software market giants such as Microsoft, Google, AWS.
The highest quality of the new trading system and its high performance are confirmed by tests carried out in cooperation with the Warsaw University of Technology. More than a dozen predefined business scenarios have been tested, covering orders placed using the FIX 5.0SP2 protocol and a proprietary binary protocol.
GPW has connected six clients to the EUAT WATS platform located in the Equinix data centre. These include clients whose servers are located in close proximity to GPW WATS in Equinix server rooms. As a result, they can develop their own systems, taking full advantage of the performance, operational and functional parameters provided by GPW WATS.
All of this puts the Warsaw Stock Exchange’s proprietary system at the absolute forefront of the most modern solutions of its class in the world.
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The Warsaw Stock Exchange Group (GPW Group) operates trading platforms for shares, Treasury and corporate bonds, derivatives, electricity and gas, and provides indices and benchmarks including WIBOR and WIBID. The index agent FTSE Russell classifies the Polish capital market as a Developed Market since 2018. The markets operated by the GPW Group are the biggest in Central and Eastern Europe. For more information, visit www.gpw.pl
Warsaw, 3 July 2019
GPW Launches Development of Proprietary Trading Platform with NCBR Co-financing
PRESS RELEASE
The agreement concerning the development of a GPW Trading Platform with co-financing of the National Centre for Research and Development has been signed today on the GPW Trading Floor. The ceremony was attended by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and Higher Education Jarosław Gowin, NCBR Director Wojciech Kamieniecki, and GPW President Marek Dietl.
The capital expenditure in the project is estimated at PLN 90 million, including PLN 30.27 million of NCBR co-financing granted in the Fast Track competition. The National Centre for Education and Development is an executive agency of the Minister of Science and Higher Education supporting financial innovation to develop the Polish capital market.
“New technology and its broad applications in the financial services industry represent a fast-growing sector of the Polish and global economy. NCBR co-financing will reinforce the position of the Warsaw Stock Exchange, one of the biggest CEE exchanges, as an innovation leader,” said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and Higher Education Jarosław Gowin at the GPW event.
GPW’s research and development project will develop a proprietary Trading Platform with functionalities dedicated to financial instruments and, due to a flexible modular architecture, to other classes of instruments, ensuring cutting-edge technical parameters and offering new types of orders and proprietary trading algorithms.
Five NCBR programmes in 2018 accepted more than 1,200 applications in a total amount of co-financing exceeding PLN 9.6 billion. The Fast Track programme was the source of financing of innovative projects most frequently chosen by companies.
NCBR has opened six Fast Track competitions in 2019 with a total budget of more than PLN 2.73 billion. The agency offers for the first time three thematic competitions dedicated to accessibility projects, space technology, and plastics technologies.
“Fast Track is a unique competition: on the one hand, it helps to finance multi-million projects of big companies like GPW; on the other hand, it supports startups and SMEs. This is how we are building an ecosystem of innovation where the key value is a good idea that can be turned into ground-breaking solutions and technologies in close co-operation between science and business,” said NCBR Director Dr Wojciech Kamieniecki. “The Warsaw Stock Exchange project proves that the Polish financial sector excels in absorbing fintech solutions, which suggests that we will stay on the forefront of change in the sector.”
The Exchange’s trading system must meet parameters ensuring efficiency, speed and alignment with changing market needs. The technology must be highly reliable, offer low latency from placing an order to confirming its execution, provide high resilience to large volumes of orders, accept and process hundreds of millions of messages per day, and handle significant load variations over time.
“The development of a proprietary trading system addresses market needs in line with the Capital Market Development Strategy. The new platform will cut transaction costs and offer new functionalities to exchange members, issuers and investors. The system will be highly reliable and secure. We are considering how to commercialise this new world-class technological solution on CEE and Middle East markets,” said GPW President Marek Dietl.
The development and implementation of the new trading system will diversify the revenue base as the new system can be sold to other exchanges. The trading system will help to add new products to GPW’s offer and make the Exchange even more attractive to capital market participants. The development of the Trading Platform will boost the reputation of GPW.
The Trading Platform will be implemented by the end of June 2023 according to the project timeline.
On 1 July 2019, NCBR closed the call for applications in this year’s first horizontal competition dedicated to projects focusing on any of the National Smart Specialisations. The next call for applications of SMEs, large companies and consortia (including research and industry consortia) in a horizontal competition opens from 16 September to 16 December 2019. The budget available for innovative projects is PLN 1.1 billion.
All Fast Track competitions are implemented in Sub-measure 1.1.1 “Industrial research and development implemented by enterprises” under the Operational Programme Smart Development.
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The Warsaw Stock Exchange Group (GPW Group) operates trading platforms for shares, Treasury and corporate bonds, derivatives, electricity and gas, and calculates the benchmarks WIBOR and WIBID. The index agent FTSE Russell classifies the Polish capital market as a Developed Market since 2018. The markets operated by the GPW Group are the biggest in Central and Eastern Europe. For more information, visit www.gpw.pl
The National Centre for Education and Development (NCBR) is an executive agency of the Minister of Science and Higher Education. For more than a decade, NCBR has brought together researchers and businesses by creating conditions conducive to research and development. NCBR co-finances R&D to support local companies and mitigate the business risk of implementation of ground-breaking research projects. The mission of NCBR is to work towards social and economic development of Poland and resolve specific civilisational problems faced by the Polish population. NCBR is the Intermediate Body in the operational programmes Smart Development and Knowledge – Education – Development. NCBR implements a range of national and international projects, as well as national security and defence projects. With an annual R&D budget of a billion euros, NCBR is the biggest research and business support centre in Poland and CEE. For more information, visit www.ncbr.gov.pl
KEY THEMES
Enhacements: performance and functionality
Access: FIX and binary protocols
System architecture
Test environment – information and access
Market Data
Migration approach
Timeline
Documentation
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