Bursa Malaysia has launched direct market access (DMA) capabilities for its equities markets, which will allow investors to trade equities directly on the exchange through member brokers’ systems.
The exchange now has a complete DMA infrastructure for both its equities and derivatives markets, having launched derivatives DMA in April 2008.
According to Bursa Malaysia, the introduction of DMA for equities will reduce the time for orders to be sent and matched to a fraction of a second from the previous average of 3 seconds per transaction, allow the exchange to support algorithmic and block trades from institutional investors, and enable the use of co-location and sponsored access.
Co-location enables members to host their servers in the same data centre as the exchange’s matching engine, reducing latency. Sponsored access grants the buy-side direct access to exchange systems without passing through brokers’ infrastructure.
“DMA is a critical component for Bursa Malaysia to remain competitive in the global investment arena,” said Dato’ Yusli Mohamed Yusoff,
Bursa Malaysia’s chief executive officer, in a statement. “We are confident that, similar to our experience with DMA for derivatives, DMA for equities will attract a new segment of trading participation given its increased accessibility and low latency. Market participants will also be able to enjoy greater connectivity and more control of their orders via the DMA infrastructure for the equities market.”