The risk management tools, which had previously only been available to participants that provide sponsored access to their clients, provide BATS Chi-X Europe trading participants with pre-trade risk protection as a supplement to their internal risk controls. Trading participants are able to set critical parameters for orders to prevent unwanted executions without incurring additional latency on inbound orders to the BXE and CXE order books.

A number of order entry attributes can be customised and changed in real time through the BATS Chi-X Europe participant web portal. Some of the key features of the risk management tools include the ability to set order restrictions, maximum per-order limits, and order cutoffs, or a participant controlled "kill switch," which would cancel all open orders and block new orders.

BATS Chi-X Europe CEO Mark Hemsley commented: "We are pleased to expand our suite of the risk management tools recently made available to BATS' customers in the U.S. to all of our trading participants in Europe. The ability to manage effectively risk at multiple layers of the trading cycle has become increasingly essential, with pre-trade risk checks at the exchange level as well as the participant level.Our risk management tools can also provide our trading participants with anadditional layer of risk controls in relation to their obligations under the ESMA guidelines on systems and controls in an automated environment."

He added: "We also continue to engage proactively with regulators and policymakers on the potential development of market-wide risk controls for a safer, more resilient pan-European market environment."

The risk management controls can be easily viewed and configured through a simple, secure Web interface, known as the BATS Chi-X Europe participant web portal, or automated and systemically controlled through the BATS Chi-X Europe Secure Web API.