Buy-side focused Canadian exchange Aequitas Neo has set its launch date for late March, later than expected, and set a schedule for two further testing sessions.
The new exchange will go live on 27 March, a date it says will give market participants, dealers and vendors time to set up their systems.
“With the starting line in clear sight, we do however also fully understand the amount of work that market participants have to complete to be launch ready without taking any unnecessary risks,” said Joacim Wiklander, chief trading & data officer at Aequitas Neo in a message to members and other stakeholders. “Based on feedback received, and in order to ensure that all dealers and vendors have the necessary time to complete all their work, we have decided to amend our launch date and provide everyone with an additional two weeks to get ready”.
The exchange completed it first test weekend on 24 January and has outlined two further test sessions, to take place on 21 February and 7 March. A previously scheduled test for 7 February will no longer take place.
Aequitas Neo is aiming to take on incumbent Canadian exchange operator TMX, offering a secondary market, listings and a market for unlisted shares. It has stated it wants to reform the exchange model to serve the needs of investors and issuers, rather than high-frequency traders (HFT), and will implement measures to discourage HFT strategies while encouraging liquidity-providing market making.
Aequitas Neo has been set up by Jos Schmitt, CEO, who previously founded Alpha ATS, an alternative trading platform that was sold to TMX in 2012 after building up a 22% share of the Canadian market.