US Based derivatives marketplace CME Group yesterday confirmed that five corporate entities have registered for and are now using the firm’s Hong Kong telecommunications Hub in order to provide point-to-point Connectivity to the CME Globex platform.
From Infancy To Fruition
CME Group commenced use of this particular hub in October last year, subsequently garnering interest from five large firms in the region wishing to gain point-to-point access to the executing venue.
In this case, CME Group has a commercial interest in expanding its presence in Asia, a region which the firm considers to be a key market.
The five firms which have signed up are large institutional organizations with established operations in the Asia-Pacific region. CASH Financial Services Group, QUAM Securities, Singaporean brokerage Philip Futures, and R.J. O'Brien & Associates HK Limited are all on board. CME Group publicly confirmed yesterday that four of these firms had gone live during May.
Point To Point connections represent a popular solution for reducing latency when the market participants are based in a different region to the executing venue. TMX Atrium in Canada supports this line of thinking and has been concentrating on expanding its point to point connections between Moscow and London during the earlier part of this year, for which there has been high demand.
CME Group realizes the importance of this means of connecting clients to venues effectively, and certainly in the Far East where there is a considerable amount of high-volume, high speed algorithmic trading it is a means of keeping the latency down and providing stern access to the venue.
The company already has an established series of point to point hubs across various regions including Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, London, Mexico City, Milan, New York, Paris, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Singapore and Tokyo.
Strategic Initiative
Yesterday, Julien Le Noble, Managing Director of CME Group’s Asia Pacific division stated on behalf of the firm:"The launch of our hub in Hong Kong underpins our strategy of expanding in one of the most important markets for us in Asia, and is a signal of our commitment to our clients in Asia.”
Julien Le Noble,
Managing Director,
CME Group,
Asia Pacific
"We are pleased to offer our customers a flexible, cost-effective and high-performance connection to CME Group in this fast-growing region. By connecting to this telecommunications hub in Hong Kong, clients in North Asia will have improved access, reduced connectivity costs, and lowest latency connection to CME Globex” concluded Mr. Le Noble.
One of CME Group's core strategic objectives is the expansion of its business activities in the Asia Pacific region. Within Asia, CME Group currently has a total of 35 clients connected to its hubs across Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul and Singapore. For Q1 2013, CME Group posted record trading volume and revenue from Asia, up 24 per cent and 31 per cent respectively, compared with Q1 2012.
