Warsaw exchange moves all trading to in-house WATS from NYSE-built UTP
Main Market turnover was PLN 1.9bn on the first session on 5 October, against a September daily average of PLN 2.7bn on the old platform.
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The Warsaw Stock Exchange (GPW) moved trading on all the markets it operates to its own Warsaw Automated Trading System, GPW WATS, on 5 October 2026, the exchange said in a session summary of 6 October.
The derivatives market opened at 8.45am and cash markets at 9am. Main Market turnover was PLN 1.9 billion on the first day and PLN 2,378 million on the second, the summary shows.
WATS replaces the Universal Trading Platform from NYSE Technologies, known as UTP, which had run GPW's markets for more than ten years, the exchange said in a 15 September release. That release announced that Exactpro, an independent software testing firm, had completed a functional testing programme ahead of what GPW called the final migration stage, and described the new system as proprietary.
The switch brings the exchange's core trading engine in-house during a period of high volumes. In September, the last full month on the old platform, order book turnover on the Main Market averaged PLN 2.7 billion a day, up 57.5 per cent on a year earlier, GPW's September activity release shows. Main Market turnover in the first two WATS sessions, PLN 1.9 billion and PLN 2.4 billion, was below that average, a Boards and Capital comparison of the two releases; the measures are not defined in identical terms and the session summary does not comment on volumes.
The first two sessions
By noon on 5 October, turnover in WIG20 shares was PLN 386 million and Main Market turnover PLN 550 million, with 3.15 million orders entered across all markets excluding cancellations, or 455,000 excluding a category labelled SAR, the summary said. By the close, WIG20 turnover had reached PLN 1,412 million, with 8.1 million orders in total and 1.2 million excluding SAR. The summary does not define SAR.
On 6 October, WIG20 turnover was PLN 1,719 million and orders totalled 7.9 million, or 1.8 million excluding SAR, the summary shows. The exchange described the system's operation as "stable" in its updates and said all transactions concluded on 5 October were "successfully settled". It reported orders entered rather than trades executed, so the number of transactions on either day is not given.
How the exchange got there
Exactpro's work covered functional testing across trading workflows and a select set of performance benchmarking scenarios, run in a production-like environment over a secure connection, the September release said. Sławomir Panasiuk, whom the exchange's governing bodies page lists as vice-president of the management board, said in the release that "GPW WATS represents years of dedicated work by our in-house engineering teams." Alexey Zverev, co-chief executive and co-founder of Exactpro, said that "GPW has a highly competent engineering team."
Neither release gives the project's cost, the year work began or the terms on which the exchange's use of UTP ends. The 15 September release presented the move as an investment in owning core trading infrastructure but did not quantify any expected saving or revenue.
The market it now runs
The switch followed a September that the exchange called "another strong month" for the Main Market in its activity release. The WIG index closed September at 157,384.98 points, up 48.0 per cent on a year earlier and 34.2 per cent since the start of 2026, the September activity release said. Total share turnover on the Main Market in September was PLN 61.5 billion, up 60.1 per cent, and the 383 domestic companies on the Main Market had a combined capitalisation of PLN 1.459 trillion.
Trading in index futures rose 23.4 per cent on the year to 814,000 contracts in September and single-stock futures more than doubled to 337,200, while currency futures fell 61.4 per cent, the release shows. Turnover in Treasury bonds on the BondSpot platform was PLN 350.8 billion, up 162.0 per cent.
The October activity release will be the first to cover a full month on WATS; on the September precedent, when figures were published on 2 October, it is due in the first days of November 2026.