11:05 AM
BofA Merrill Announces Ultra-Low Latency Platform
Bank of America Merrill Lynch today announced BofAML Express, the firm’s new ultra low-latency market access and risk control platform for U.S. equities.
The platform delivers sub 10-microseconds of wire-to-wire latency and provides an embedded series of risk controls required by recent SEC regulation, according to the firm in today’s release.
"In this highly competitive environment, having the premiere trading platform is imperative as the market adapts to new regulation,” comments Michael Lynch, head of Americas execution services at BofAML in the release. “While we’ve deployed pre-trade risk checks for some time now, BofAML Express gives our clients an edge by compressing latency to levels unimaginable just a short time ago without compromising any controls.”
While the firm is initially targeting customers with quantitative strategies, it believes that BofAML Express can eventually be leveraged across the firm's entire client segment as the demand for high-performance technology grows, according to a BofAML spokesperson. Since the platform’s production debut, Lynch says, the firm has seen “rapid client adoption and increasing volumes demonstrating the continued client demand for high performance trading platforms," stated Lynch in the release. The platform, initially developed by Thesys Technologies, currently connects to all major U.S. equity exchanges. Additionally, the parties (BofAML and Thesys) have entered into a strategic arrangement to leverage the core technology offering for other electronic trading opportunities across asset classes and markets spanning Europe and Asia.
Ivy is Editor-at-Large for Advanced Trading and Wall Street & Technology. Ivy is responsible for writing in-depth feature articles, daily blogs and news articles with a focus on automated trading in the capital markets. As an industry expert, Ivy has reported on a myriad ... View Full Bio