Bolsa Mexicana de Valores’ soon to be completed new trading platform will be amongst the fastest in the world, according to reports in the Financial Times.
Planned to be operational by May, the $18 million upgrade will process orders 200 times faster than the bourse’s current system. According to the company, the platform will be capable of handling 200,000 transactions per second, taking less than 100 microseconds to process each one. The platform has been developed in-house, in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University and Tibell & Associates. The FT reports that the system will also integrate BMV’s cash and derivatives markets and allow for the quicker development of new services, a vital feature as the exchange seeks to attract more foreign business.
Development of the new platform has been driven by a surge in automated trading on the Mexican exchange in recent years. The amount of transactions doubled between 2010 and 2011, hitting a daily average of 3.7 million. If BMV’s expectations for the new system’s speed are accurate, it will be competing on latency with major international exchanges such as NYSE Euronext, Nasdaq OMX and the London Stock Exchange.
“We needed to find a way to accommodate and keep up with new trading strategies,” BMV president Luis Téllez told the FT. “Algorithmic trading is here to stay.”