Every securities firm, asset manager, and fintech platform operating in Indonesia’s capital market relies on the same underlying product: IDX market data from the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). Yet many firms pay relatively little attention to how they actually connect to that data source.
This choice matters more than it appears. It determines the cost of data, how quickly that data arrives, what a firm is contractually permitted to do with it, and how much infrastructure the firm has to own and operate itself. The decision also tends to be made once and then inherited for years — often by teams who don’t realise a decision was ever there to be made.
This guide covers what IDX Data Services actually licenses, the two IDX connectivity paths available for receiving data, when each one is the right choice, and why the physical layer underneath both deserves more attention than it usually gets.
What Does IDX License?
A common misconception is to treat “market data” as a single product. Through IDX Data Services, there are four distinct license types, and a firm may need more than one: IDX Market Data (equity, bond, and derivative products, ranging from end-of-day files to real-time feeds), IDX Data Reference (financial statements, corporate actions, and listed-company disclosures), IDX Index License (use of IDX indices for products such as ETFs and mutual funds), IDX Data Publication (routine statistical publications), and the IDX Connection License for firms that want to become a Network Service Provider (NSP) — rather than simply a data user.
IDX Market Data and IDX Data Reference are each available as either a Display or a Non-Display license. This distinction is one of the areas that most frequently causes problems for firms. Display covers data shown to users on a screen. Non-Display covers data consumed by systems — for example, algorithmic execution, automated risk checks, portfolio valuation engines, or index calculation. A firm that holds a Display license and then pipes that data into a pricing engine has a licensing problem, not just a technical one. Issues like this typically surface during an audit, not at implementation.
The IDX Connection License sits in a separate category from the four data categories above. It is granted to firms that want to become an IDX NSP — a licensed carrier permitted to provide IDX connectivity into subscriber systems. Most financial firms will never need this license; they simply buy connectivity services from an NSP that already holds one.
Also read: Financial Services at Digital Edge Indonesia
Two Paths: Direct Connection and Indirect Connection
Once licensing requirements are settled, data can be delivered through one of two official paths defined by IDX.
Direct Connection means taking data straight from the source. The firm holds its own IDX license and connects its systems to IDX Data Systems over a dedicated leased line provided by a licensed IDX NSP.
Indirect Connection means receiving data through a licensed redistributor — a data vendor that already has a direct relationship with IDX and resells the feed, usually bundled with data normalisation, historical archives, symbology, and supported APIs.
The differences are fairly clear:
| Direct Connection | Indirect Connection (Redistributor) | |
|---|---|---|
| Licensing | Firm holds its own IDX license | Uses the vendor’s license; firm contracts with the redistributor |
| Delivery | Leased line via a licensed IDX NSP | Vendor’s feed, API, or terminal |
| Data format | Native IDX format, unmodified | Normalised, enriched, and may cover multiple markets |
| Latency | Lowest — straight from the source | Higher, as it passes through the vendor |
| Infrastructure | Firm owns and manages the handoff, feed handlers, and resilience | Largely the vendor’s responsibility |
| Best suited to | Execution, market making, systematic strategies, and internal pricing at scale | Research, advisory, reporting, and multi-market needs |
When Direct Connection Is Worth It
Direct Connection involves considerably more work than Indirect Connection. The following four situations usually make that investment worthwhile.
The first is when latency is part of the strategy itself. IDX provides full-depth order book data through its real-time Non-Display services, along with lighter variants for top-of-book and last-sale. Firms running systematic execution or market making off the full order book make decisions in conditions where the additional latency introduced by a vendor is a genuine cost. A firm producing end-of-day performance reports doesn’t face the same requirement.
Second, when data is consumed by systems rather than merely displayed on screens. At Non-Display scale, licensing directly from the source is often cheaper than paying vendor entitlements based on user counts. It also removes the compliance ambiguity that arises when vendor data has to flow into automated processes.
Third, when the native format is a requirement rather than a preference. Some firms need the exchange’s message format directly — either because their systems were built around it, or because a vendor’s normalisation process can introduce assumptions they would rather control themselves.
Fourth, when dependence on a single vendor becomes a risk that has to be managed. For firms whose regulator or risk committee scrutinises vendor concentration in the critical path, taking data directly can change the risk profile, even where it doesn’t change the cost.
For everyone else — advisory businesses, research desks, asset managers with multi-market needs, and most fintech platforms — Indirect Connection is the right choice. Paying for Direct Connection in those cases means buying capability the business will most likely never use.
Where JTPM Fits, and Why It’s Different
These two are often treated as the same thing, and that confusion can lead to budgeting mistakes.
JTPM, the Integrated Capital Market Network, is a closed private network that carries transactions: order entry to the exchange, clearing through KPEI, and settlement through KSEI. It is the network that allows a firm to operate as a market participant.
IDX Direct Connection carries market data from IDX into subscriber systems over a direct path with better latency.
Securities firms need both: JTPM is mandatory for reaching Market Data (IDX), KSEI, and KPEI, while IDX Direct Connect provides a faster connection to Market Data (IDX).
The Physical Layer Underneath Both
Whichever path is chosen, the connection ultimately has to terminate physically somewhere — and that location indirectly determines cost, provisioning time, and resilience.
Provisioning time is fundamentally a fibre problem. A leased line into a building with no existing carrier presence requires new fibre build: permits, civil works, and months of lead time. A leased line into a carrier-neutral facility where an IDX NSP already operates requires only a cross-connect — an in-building patch connection that can be ordered in days. The circuit is the same. The time to deliver it is not.
Carrier neutrality makes provider diversity more affordable. Meeting the two-provider JTPM requirement, or simply avoiding dependence on a single carrier for the data path, becomes far easier when several licensed NSPs operate in the same facility and connecting to a second provider takes nothing more than an additional cross-connect. Doing the same thing across a second building is expensive and slow.
Consolidation is an underrated benefit. Market data, trading connectivity, cloud access for risk and analytics workloads, and internet capacity for public-facing services are four distinct requirements that too often end up in four different locations. Placing them all in a single colocation footprint reduces the number of interconnection relationships a small infrastructure team has to operate — and for most securities firms in Indonesia, that constraint, rather than budget, is the real limiting factor.
Disaster recovery isn’t something to think about later. Both the data path and the transaction path need a secondary site. In general, designing DR site connectivity alongside the primary site tends to be cheaper than retrofitting it later — particularly given that the resilience requirements applying to financial institutions in Indonesia are standard expected practice.
Conclusion
Providing access to IDX market data actually involves two decisions, not one. The first is commercial and legal: which license category the business genuinely needs, and whether Direct Connection or Indirect Connection better matches how the data will be used.
The second is physical infrastructure, and this is the one most often left to default. Infrastructure configuration determines how quickly IDX connectivity can be turned up, how affordable it is to run, and how fast user transactions can be executed. Firms that think this through consistently tend to end up with simpler infrastructure and lower recurring costs.
Digital Edge Indonesia’s facilities in Jakarta provides carrier-neutral access to licensed IDX NSPs and capital market connectivity providers, so Indonesian capital market data, JTPM connections, and IDX Direct Connect can all be reached easily via cross-connect. Talk to our team to map your market data and trading connectivity requirements into a single colocation footprint.
