BOX Launches High-Capacity Operations Platform - 3x Faster Than Current Architecture

29/04/10

The Boston Options Exchange Group, LLC (BOX) announced today at the Options Industry Conference it will launch a new operations platform on Monday, May 10. BOX has partnered with Equinix, Inc., a provider of global data center services, to create an ultra-fast matching engine within the Equinix NY4 International Business Exchange (IBX®) data center.

“BOX’s new operations platform demonstrates our ongoing commitment to reinvestment in our infrastructure with the addition of a high performance trading environment that is value-driven for our clients,” said Tony McCormick, BOX CEO. “BOX participants will see consistent response times and message allocation that will meet or exceed market demand at a speed 3x faster than our current architecture.”

With the new operations platform, BOX participants can expect to benefit from:

• Response times of less than one millisecond
• Speed of a million quotes per second
• Capacity of a 100,000 orders per second
• Allocation of 5,000 messages for every logical connection

BOX’s ultra-low latency matching engine can be accessed from hubs in Chicago and New York. Participants wishing to connect at NY4 can arrange space directly through Equinix.

"TMX Group is both the majority shareholder as well as the technology provider to BOX. With today's announcement we are demonstrating our continued commitment to efficient innovations and improvements that drive value for BOX and their customers," said Alain Miquelon, TMX Group Head of Derivatives. "As we work with BOX management to identify and capitalize on new growth opportunities, these platform improvements serve to further strengthen our competitive advantage in the market."

BOX order matching is executed on price-time priority with no order cancellation fees. BOX’s key feature is its Price Improvement Period (PIP) auction, which has returned over $270 million in savings to customers since BOX’s launch. BOX offers multiple competing market makers and has no seats to buy or lease. BOX has very simple fee structures.