BVC Teams with Rapid Addition

Columbian stock exchange Bolsa de Valores de Colombia (BVC) is teaming with Rapid Addition to deploy a new FIX-enabled exchange gateway as well as a lightweight buy-side trading system for its clients.

Under the terms of the deal, BVC will roll out the vendor's GRHub FIX protocol gateway and order routing hub. The platform is capable of onward-routing FIX messages as well as acting as a gateway by translating FIX messages into an extensible list of commercially available or proprietary middleware protocols, according to vendor officials.

The exchange also plans to offer the vendor's u-Trader web-based multi-asset trading platform, which connects buy-side traders to their brokers and execution venues.

"Using u-Trader gives institutions the ability to automate their flow of equity order, equity options, program, list and portfolio trades, and also supports direct market access (DMA) and algorithmic trading," says a Rapid Addition spokesperson.

According to Jitendra Puri, vice president of technology at BVC, the exchange selected the Rapid Addition platforms due to the vendor's experience with low-latency FIX connections, which should aid the exchange as it expands its offerings internationally.

Competition in Latin America, and specifically in Columbia, Chile and Peru, has been heating up as the major exchanges in Bogotá, Santiago and Lima have been in a race to improve their electronic trading offerings.

As a result, the growth in system performance in the region has been dramatic, according to one unnamed vendor representative, who claims to be an expert in the Latin American market. In just eight months, the Santiago Stock Exchange's trade latency dropped from seconds to milliseconds, says the representative.