BATS Trading, a US alternative trading platform, is to host its new European platform at a London data centre owned by SAVVIS, an IT infrastructure provider. BATS revealed plans at the end of March to establish an equities trading platform in London to serve the European market. The new platform is expected to start trading later this year.
The new BATS European electronic communications network (ECN) will be co-located at the SAVVIS data centre in London’s Docklands. BATS will also use SAVVIS’ proximity hosting solution, which it believes will reduce estimated transaction times to microseconds. SAVVIS has hosted BATS’ US platform since is launch, and has provided proximity hosting to BATS’ US clients since August 2007.
“With the advent of MiFID, there is real demand in Europe for access to global markets and, in order to make international trading successful, we must replicate the same speed and responsiveness we’ve displayed in the US”, said Ken Conklin, senior vice president for business development at BATS, in a statement. “With our dedication to making markets better while working in tandem with the broker-dealer community, SAVVIS, with its proven experience, is a natural fit for us in Europe.”
BATS believes the introduction of this facility will give its European platform the capacity for future growth and reduce the latency for algorithmic traders, given the data centre’s close proximity to London’s financial centre.