Bats Global Markets, Inc. (Bats: BATS), the Lenexa-based operator of the US' second-largest stock exchange, today announced that it has successfully migrated BATS BZX Options to the group’s latest proprietary matching engine.
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BZX Options will Leverage BATS’ state-of-the-art technology, including customer connectivity, messaging protocols, quotation and Execution engine, order router, data feeds and infrastructure. This approach will minimize the technology effort required for existing exchange members to begin trading on BZX Options.
Launched in February 2010, BZX Options is a pure price-time priority market with a maker-taker pricing model that trades all multiply-listed equity options available for trading in the U.S.
In a statement, BATS said the migration process was completed without any hassle and didn’t even affect the activities of its clients. Further evidence of the smooth transition is that all active customers have traded using the new technology on the last day of migration, September 29, when 1.2 billion orders valued at $308 million exchanged hands.
EDGX Options, Bats’ second US options market, was the first exchange to be built using the new technology.
Chris Isaacson, Executive Vice President and Global Chief Information Officer at Bats, commented: “Our next generation matching engine encompasses all we have learned in more than a decade of building and operating technology at the forefront of global securities markets, and streamlines it into an elegant platform marked by extraordinary flexibility, performance, and resilience. I commend Eric Crampton, SVP, Global Head of Software Engineering, and his team for executing this flawless migration.”
Bats was founded in June 2005 and then became operator of a licensed US stock exchange in 2008, and opened its pan-European stock market in October 2008. BATS also got into the foreign exchange (FX) market last year after acquiring Hotspot, a currency-trading venue, making its first foray into the $5.3 trillion market and diversifying its sources of income.
Earlier in September, Bats and the Chicago Board Options Exchange made the headlines after announcing that the CBOE would acquire Bats for about $3.2 billion. Bats Chief Executive Chris Concannon will be president and chief operating officer of the combined company.
