AI to Help Moscow Exchange Detect Market Manipulation
The Moscow Exchange is deploying artificial intelligence to detect market manipulation and insider trading. By automatically analyzing hundreds of thousands of transactions, the technology can quickly identify signs of coordinated trading activity and help stop abusive practices before they affect the market.
Algorithms process massive volumes of exchange and over-the-counter trading data in real time, identify the most suspicious behavioral patterns and forward those cases to compliance specialists for expert review.
AI Identifies Intent
AI can correlate executed trades, hidden links between accounts, price movements, trading strategies and even the surrounding information environment, uncovering subtle combinations of indicators associated with abusive trading that would be extremely difficult to detect manually.
"We needed new analytical tools, so we started building them," said Irina Grekova, Senior Managing Director for Compliance and Business Ethics at Moscow Exchange.
Bringing AI into compliance operations will strengthen protection for retail investors against price manipulation, cartel collusion and the misuse of insider information. Greater transparency and stronger confidence in Russia's national securities market could also attract additional investment into the real economy.
From Individual Checks to Holistic Analysis
To analyze stock market conditions and the information environment influencing them, large language models (LLMs) work alongside machine learning models. Over the next two to three years, the focus is expected to shift from reviewing individual suspicious trades to conducting comprehensive, multi-factor analysis of market participants' behavior. That process will build a knowledge base of common manipulation schemes, allowing investigations to be ranked automatically by risk level before similar capabilities are extended to commodities, foreign exchange and derivatives markets.
Violators Face Growing Scrutiny
The number of retail investors continues to grow each year, although only 13% qualify as sophisticated investors. According to the Bank of Russia, however, that group accounts for 75% of the total value of exchange-traded investment portfolios, making it a major force shaping market conditions. To reduce sharp market swings and lower the risk of manipulation by professional trading participants, the Bank of Russia continues expanding its regulatory framework, while Moscow Exchange provides the technological capabilities needed to monitor compliance.
Technical advances, including the adoption of artificial intelligence, are turning what was once an exceptionally difficult investigative task into a routine operational process, leading to a growing number of detected violations. In 2024, for example, administrative penalties were imposed on 112 individuals and legal entities, twice as many as in 2023. In 2025, the Bank of Russia sanctioned 228 individuals and organizations for insider trading and market manipulation and issued 334 orders blocking brokerage accounts.
Market Oversight Mechanisms
The Bank of Russia and the Ministry of Finance will continue pursuing legislative reforms aimed at combating market manipulation and insider trading in the financial sector. The proposed changes cover multiple federal laws as well as the Criminal Code and the Code of Administrative Offenses. A package of draft legislation was submitted to the State Duma in November 2025. Also, authorities are expanding the technical infrastructure used to enforce regulatory requirements.
Moscow Exchange's AI toolkit complements the broader digital ecosystem for market surveillance. Artificial intelligence is being integrated into every stage of compliance investigations, making it easier and faster to uncover sophisticated, multi-layered market manipulation schemes. Over time, that approach is expected to strengthen protections for retail investors while reinforcing confidence in Russia's stock market.
