Bats Europe Adds Thomson Reuters Elektron for Pan-European Data

Pan-European multilateral trading facility Bats Europe is live with market data sourced from Thomson Reuters’ new Elektron delivery infrastructure. Bats is the second major MTF to sign up for Elektron-delivered data from the main European equity exchanges and other MTFs, following an earlier decision by rival Chi-X Europe.

According to Bats Europe COO Paul O’Donnell, the Thomson Reuters data will be used solely for internal purposes. Specifically, the data will be used to price executions on Bats’ mid-price dark pool, to drive its smart order routing system and to generate data for its market share page.

The deal is a nonexclusive one, O’Donnell says. Bats Europe uses several other suppliers – among them the likes of Fixnetix – for different purposes and backup. He stresses that Bats Europe continues to evaluate alternative and additional data sources and delivery mechanisms, as the rapid evolution of the marketplace can impact future requirements.

O’Donnell says several factors came into play in Bats’ assessment of low latency market data delivery options, primarily reliability, latency and coverage. He says Thomson Reuters excelled in all three areas.

The fact that Elektron makes use of hosting facilities in the same Savvis-operated Docklands data centre that Bats Europe uses to house its matching engines was an additional benefit, but not a factor in the decision, he says. The close proximity of Thomson Reuters’ RDF Direct servers at Savvis Docklands, he says, may make it a little faster than its competitors. As it stands, Elektron Hosting clients are able to collocate their trading applications within the same Savvis data centre as Bats Europe.

Scott Kennedy, Global Business Manager, Direct Feeds, Thomson Reuters, points out that the arrangement is similar to that in the US, where Bats Exchange shares the same Savvis data centre with Thomson Reuters in Weehawken, New Jersey.

Bats Europe will use Elektron as a source for low-latency market data from all the major European exchanges and MTFs. It will also supply updates from other sources such as MarkitBoat, NYSE Euronext’s Smartpool dark pool, and the Nordic broker-backed Burgundy trading platform.
O’Donnell says Bats wasn’t fazed by Chi-X Europe’s earlier adoption of Elektron. “We were looking for the best solution we could get,” he says. The implementation is currently live with coverage from most of the markets Bats seeks to monitor.