Sweden’s financial trading markets connected to some of the fastest trading speeds in Europe

Interoute reduces round trip delay for trading platforms in London, Paris and Sweden as algorithmic traders are attracted to profitable Scandinavian markets

London, 24 March 2010 – Interoute, owner operator of Europe’s largest next-generation network, has completed two extensions to its Fast Trade service, connecting Lyon to Paris and Hamburg to Stockholm, reducing latency between key European trading platforms by 15 per cent.  The extensions will reduce round trip delay between London, Amsterdam and Paris and the rapidly growing financial markets in Scandinavia.

Financial institutions now have more choice than ever before when it comes to choosing which trading platform to list with, as more and more European markets are offering algorithmic trading. Interoute is helping to accelerate this process by improving round trip delay between established and fast growing European trading platforms.  Interoute has direct connectivity agreements in place with a number of Europe’s leading financial platforms, including NASDAQ OMX EUROPE (NEURO).

Lee Myall, UK Regional Director at Interoute, said: “Until recently high risk and poor latency restricted financial trading in the Scandinavian regions. The introduction of clearing houses in October 2009 addressed the issue of risk, and now Interoute Fast Trade is helping to reduce the latency between trading platforms. With the recent changes, the Scandinavian trading market is proving to be very attractive to European traders.”

Since launching in August 2009, Interoute has received a surge in demand for its Fast Trade service, which offers ultra low latency connectivity between 28 countries in Europe.  A range of institutions, from large blue-chip banks to small, specialist electronic trading organisations and emerging specialists in high-frequency trading, have signed up for the service.

Fast Trade is a point to point service based on Interoute's SDH and wavelength platforms. When bandwidth is purchased, it is solely dedicated to the financial institution, ensuring that latency does not vary, even during the most volatile trading times.  Equally, the contractual round trip delay of Fast Trade circuits is based on the exact route that the circuit will take and is measured before handover to the nearest 10th of a millisecond. This forms the basis of its premium service level agreement, which allows organisations to cancel if the service level guarantee is breached during contract term.