This latest expansion will allow Options customers the unique ability to leverage exchange colocation services, using a single provider, for every lit and dark equity and options market in the United States.

Options' Mahwah hosting is underpinned by the firm's Velocity platform, the IaaS provider's ultra-low latency market data, connectivity and application hosting service, which will see the firm allow quantitative trading and market making operations to deploy the most latency sensitive trading strategies available. Firms leveraging Velocity will be able to optimize their electronic trading platform, while reducing operation costs. The platform also allows for the ability to scale, by the server, and at a predictable cost.

The Mahwah expansion will also further complement Options wider global network and data center footprint, which spans the US, Europe and Asia. Currently, the Options platform provides highly automated application and infrastructure hosting in the entire New Jersey colo corridor (including NY4, NJ2 and Carteret), Chicago, the entire London colo map (including Slough, Basildon, Earl Street, Interxion, Telehouse and Park Royal), Frankfurt, Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo. As with Mahwah, each site is linked via the Velocity platform, providing unified access, security, high-speed storage, and proactive monitoring with 24x7 global support. Additionally, Velocity clients will also be able to leverage Options' extensive investment in Arista switching, which has reduced port-to-port latencies to under 400 nanoseconds.

Options CEO, Nigel Kneafsey, commented, "The Mahwah expansion is a key addition to the platform and one that demonstrates our continued focus in building a best-in-class managed infrastructure platform for the trading and alternative investment communities. The aim has always been to provide a proven alternative to those electronic trading firms considering consolidating or exporting their high performance infrastructure and the demand we're seeing for the Options platform is certainly indicative of success in this regard."

"Running a profitable trading operation, be it a prop book, agency desk or market making, requires remarkable focus on market strategy and tactical execution. We're gratified to see our customers succeed and grow based in part on the ability we give them to focus on their core business and leave the infrastructure challenges to us," concluded Mr Kneafsey.