Kx, a division of Newry-headquartered First Derivatives, has won a major contract with the Canadian Securities Administrators to develop and manage a next-generation analytics platform which will identify and investigate potential market irregularities.

The Canadian group, which is the council of the securities regulators for that country’s provinces and territories, said the new Kx system will provide a broad range of market and transaction data to help “improve insight and support market integrity”.

First Derivatives' data analytics and machine learning technology is already used by two other major national regulators: the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. The London AIM-listed group also works with 19 of the top 20 global investment banks.

Kx specialises in developing high-volume, data-intensive analytics and applications. Brian Conlon, chief executive of Kx and founder of First Derivatives, said the group continues to "win market share in surveillance, with banks, buy-side firms, exchanges as well as regulators".