MillenniumIT intro-
duced novel concepts in
designing complex elec-
tronic trading systems with
predictable performance
that met the regulated
ultra-high resiliency re-
quirements. Being an early
mover allowed for the slow,
steady penetration of the
company’s technology into
capital markets around the
world. In 2009, the London
lenges served to help con-
tain the costs of scalability,
while preserving high re-
siliency. LSEG Technology
quit using costlier hard-
ware-dependent resiliency
by introducing software
fault-tolerance models into
a freshly built common
technology framework for
fintech applications.
Such software fault tolerance introduced patented
models of replication,
synchronization, and recovery that ran on commodity hardware at a fraction
of the cost, establishing
new industry benchmarks
on system availability for
mission-critical fintech applications.
A first-of-its-kind deploy-
ment in Sri Lanka’s national
stock exchange (CSE) in
Stock Exchange Group
acquired MillenniumIT
and secured the status
of the “fastest trading
system” through a subse-
quent technology upgrade.
Today, LSEG Technology6
(as it is now known) is
a key contributor to the
overall group’s technology
strength, and powers over
40 capital market institutions around the globe.
Since its inception, creative disruption along four
major themes has served
to keep LSEG Technology
competitive.
1. Software resilience
for scalable distributed
systems.
Scalable distributed systems are at the core of the
architecture of the organization’s electronic trading
systems. Competitive chal-
DURING THE 1990S, the Sri Lankan IT sector was andwiched between
the forces of free market competition and the
internal turbulence due to
civil unrest. The relatively
small internal marketplace
made it difficult to attract
foreign investments and
expand businesses beyond
IT offshoring. However,
stock trading was a brick-and-mortar business that
presented promising
growth potential with the
advent of financial technology (fintech).
Sensing this opportunity,
a set of seasoned managers at
an existing IT services business set off with a broader
vision, marking the birth of
MillenniumIT (now known
as LSEG Technology), a
fintech product company.
The farsighted entry into
fintech, and the experience
in mobilizing local talent,
contributed to the early
success of MillenniumIT.
Creative Disruption in
Fintech from Sri Lanka
BY AJIT SAMARANAYAKE, SAMPATH TILAKUMARA,
THAYAPARAN SRIPAVAN, AND RASIKA WITHANAWASAM
Finance | DOI: 10.1145/3343458
The early application of ‘creative
disruption’ to a niche market
with immense growth potential
has proven to be a very effective
tool and strategy.
Figure 1. The Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE), the first customer. (Photo courtesy of CSE)
