The MICEX offers participants in financial markets (the government securities market, the stock market, the currency market and the standard contracts market) standardized connection of electronic automated broker systems to the MICEX Trading System. Such broker systems enable to receive, process and provide to users information from the MICEX soft- and hardware complex (systems of "broker-client" level). They also enable to collect orders and submit them to the Trading System.

Broker systems are connected to the MICEX soft- and hardware complex with the help of the MICEX gateway, the hard- and software interface , which enables their interaction with the MICEX Trading System in the real-time mode.

Benefits of electronic broker systems, connected to the MICEX Trading System, for brokers and their clients
Modern information technologies are rapidly changing the character of the stock market. More and more investors begin to opt for the interactive method of trading in securities, which allows them to receive market information in the real-time mode and send their orders to sell or purchase securities to their broker via the computer.

The advantages of using electronic broker systems become especially obvious when brokers give their clients access to such systems via the Internet. The wide spread of electronic broker systems enables market participants (brokers):

• to expand their client base;
• to serve more clients without expanding their staff;
• to use additional possibilities in serving clients;
• to connect remote subsidiaries;
• to increase the number of regional clients without setting up subsidiaries;
• to reduce costs of serving clients;
• to reduce looses from operational errors;
• to bolster clients' confidence.

The use of electronic broker systems with access via the Internet, connected to the MICEX Trading System, enables brokers' clients:

• to carry out operations directly, increasing their speed;
• to receive more complete and timely information to be used for taking investment decisions;
• to reduce the risks of broker's operational errors;
• to reduce the costs of operations;
• to realize one more way of using the Internet.

When developing their strategy of Internet-based trading in financial markets, the MICEX specialists proceeded from the following principles:

1. freedom of choice of decisions for electronic broker systems;
2. maximum protection of the central Trading System;
3. standardized flexible interface between the central Trading System and electronic broker systems;
4. the universal diagram of connection of external systems of different types and assignments to the central Trading System.

The universal bidirectional gateway (the hard- and software interface), developed by the MICEX specialists, enables users of broker systems to receive information from the MICEX Trading System (general market information, quotations, transactions, positions, etc.) in the real-time mode and submit and withdraw orders on the MICEX.

Legally, only professional participants (members of MICEX and MICEX Stock Exchange) carry out transactions on the MICEX. They are responsible before the MICEX for the actions of their clients.

To work on the MICEX via the gateway, an investor must choose a member of the Stock Market Section from the list of those members who have installed the MICEX gateway and conclude a brokerage agreement with him.