Equinix (Nasdaq: EQIX), the leading global provider of network-neutral datacentres and internet exchange services, has extended its network of global Equinix Financial eXchange communities to include London and Paris.
These two new locations join Equinix's existing communities in Chicago, Frankfurt and New York, and will provide financial organisations with secure, reliable and low latency connectivity to global financial trading centres as well as a highly resilient and convenient platform for community members to interconnect with each other and multiple service providers.
In addition to proximity services that offer direct market access to major trading exchanges, the two new Equinix Financial eXchange communities will also provide organisations with the high levels of connectivity they need to access the growing number of multiple trading venues that firms need to connect with to be successful in today's post-MiFID environment. As a carrier-neutral colocation provider, Equinix already provides direct access to more than 300 networks, including all the leading tier one providers.
With its Financial eXchange approach, Equinix provides the speed and proximity to global execution venues that algorithmic and alternative trading strategies increasingly rely upon. Building on this direct access model, Equinix is developing a next generation of financial hubs made up of access to traditional exchanges, alternative venues, other liquidity pools, market data vendors, trading platforms, clearing and settlement providers, buy-side and sell-side representatives, hedge funds, best-of-breed network providers as well as connectivity to other key geographies such as America and Asia/Pacific.
"With our network of Equinix Financial eXchanges, we provide a highly resilient and convenient co-location platform, while our global hosting infrastructure makes us an ideal partner for the creation of neutral interactive financial communities," commented Guy Willner, President of Equinix's European operations. "We've already achieved considerable success with our major Financial eXchange solution in Frankfurt, and have recently seen a significant increase in demand from the UK and French markets for our high performance services and financial grade security. It makes good sense now to accelerate the expansion of our network, and we look forward to welcoming a broad range of financial services organisations into our London and Paris communities."
Leading financial services organisations are already taking advantage of the Equinix Financial eXchange approach to provide a range of differentiated services for their customers. Current members include Deutsche Boerse Systems, Liffe, Chi-X Europe, Fixnetix, Atrium Networks, LSE and Yipes.
"Our customers increasingly rely on our ultra-low latency direct data feeds and trading connectivity to provide them with their competitive advantage. By locating part of our technical infrastructure within an Equinix Financial eXchange, we're able to provide customers with sub-millisecond access to multiple exchanges, added Hugh Hughes, Chief Executive Officer of Fixnetix.
Another key member of the Equinix Financial eXchange community is Liffe, the international derivatives business of NYSE Euronext. According to Paul MacGregor, Liffe's Director of Technology Partnerships: "Liffe has successfully created a single market for international derivatives by bringing all of our derivatives products together on a single electronic trading platform, LIFFE CONNECT. We're delighted to be part of the Equinix Financial eXchange community, as it too is committed to making trading easier and more cost-effective."
Emmanuel Carjat, CEO for Atrium Network, said: "We enable exchange venues to deliver financial transaction services over our secure extranet. Joining the Financial eXchange community will enable more financial services firms to also access our extranet service, allowing them to interconnect with their own communities of interest - such as exchanges, clearing firms, CSDs and market data vendors - over our robust and scaleable technology."
Equinix Financial eXchanges are based on the company's standard-setting datacentre architecture, offering larger facilities, more robust power, unrivalled security and specialist datacentre support. Members of the Equinix Financial eXchange community can benefit from direct access cross-connects to a range of financial hub resources including traditional exchanges and other financial platform providers.
The two new Equinix Financial eXchange communities will be sited at the company's Paris2 centre in Saint-Denis, Paris and at the major Equinix London4 datacentre site located in Slough. Equinix recently announced that Paris2 has received ISO 9001:2000 certification and that it would be doubling its size to 2,500 square metres. Earlier this year, Equinix confirmed that London4 will be built out to its maximum 10,000 square metre capacity, with the space becoming fully available in the second half of 2008.