Chicago-based CBOE Holdings, the largest US options exchange, today announced that it will migrate its CFE futures market to the Trading Platform of its newly acquired Bats Global Markets, the second largest Stock Exchange , as trading venues continue their consolidation across all financial asset classes. The switch-over process is expected to be finalized by February 25, 2018, with the migration dates of the C2 and CBOE options exchanges to be announced later.
The merger will take advantage of Bats' proprietary trading technologies, with the combined company expected to move all trading to the Bats platform. However, the integration complexity of the two companies has encouraged CBOE to make switchover timetables and dates more public.
To this end, it has dedicated a website for current CFE’s customers to aid them in their transition to BATS technology and protocols. An overview of the integration plan and detailed roadmap for CFE’s migration is available on the CBOE integration website at www.cboe.com/BatsIntegration.
In addition, customers will be given numerous testing opportunities throughout the fourth quarter of 2017 and into the first quarter of 2018 to ensure preparedness for CFE’s planned switch-over.
According to a release, CBOE expects to incorporate the functionality offered by both technology platforms following the migration onto the Bats' system. By using the Bats' technology and the combined customer reach of CBOE Holdings and Bats, the company plans to broaden distribution of its expanded product line to provide more range and depth of products and services.
CBOE Chief Information Officer Chris Isaacson commented: “With our two companies now united as CBOE, our team is focused on executing a seamless technical and operational integration of the CBOE, C2 and CFE exchanges onto Bats technology. We have a detailed roadmap to navigate through this multi-year process and intend to work very closely with all industry participants to ensure a smooth migration.”
Bryan Harkins, CBOE Head of US Equities and Global FX, added: “We are particularly excited about the new product opportunities and having the ability to not only touch every aspect of the product development and trading cycle, but to create strong links between CBOE and Bats asset classes that are becoming increasingly interdependent.”
